We consider finite temperature 1-loop diagrams with hard loop momenta and an arbitrary number of external gauge fields when the external momenta are either soft, or near the light cone and nearly collinear with the loop momentum. We obtain a recursion relation for these diagrams which we translate into an equation for their generating functional. By integrating out the soft fields while keeping two collinear ones we find an integral equation, originally due to Arnold, Moore, and Yaffe, which sums the bremsstrahlung and pair annihilation contribution to the thermal photon production rate.
We present an all-order generalized factorization formula for QCD scattering amplitudes in kinematical configurations where two or more momenta of the external partons become collinear. The singular behaviour of the scattering amplitudes in the collinear limit is encoded by collinear splitting matrices. In the space-like region and beyond the tree level, the collinear splitting matrices depend also on the momenta and quantum numbers of the non-collinear partons, thus breaking strict collinear factorization. Although the factorization breaking contribution partly cancels for squared amplitudes,…
We discuss our recent study of the impact of collinear PDFs and their uncertainties on the determination of transverse momentum dependent (TMD) distributions and the description of Drell-Yan (DY) production measurements at low transverse momenta. Using QCD factorization and evolution in transverse coordinate b space, this study takes into account for the first time flavor-dependent non-perturbative b-profiles. It illustrates that collinear PDF uncertainties and non-perturbative TMD flavor dependence are both essential to obtain reliable TMD determinations.
Proof of factorization of soft and collinear divergences in non-equilibrium QCD may be necessary to study hadronic signatures of quark-gluon plasma at RHIC and LHC. In this paper we prove factorization of soft and collinear divergences in non-equilibrium QED by using Schwinger-Keldysh closed-time path integral formalism in the background field method in pure gauge.
This chapter reviews the construction of ``soft-collinear gravity'', the effective field theory which describes the interaction of collinear and soft gravitons with matter (and themselves), to all orders in the soft-collinear power expansion, focusing on the essential concepts. Among them are an emergent soft background gauge symmetry, which lives on the light-like trajectories of energetic particles and allows for a manifestly gauge-invariant representation of the interactions in terms of a soft covariant derivative and the soft Riemann tensor, and a systematic treatment of collinear interact…
The factorization of multi-leg gauge theory amplitudes in the soft and collinear limits provides strong constraints on the structure of amplitudes, and enables efficient calculations of multi-jet observables at the LHC. There is significant interest in extending this understanding to include subleading powers in the soft and collinear limits. While this has been achieved for low point amplitudes, for higher point functions there is a proliferation of variables and more complicated phase space, making the analysis more challenging. By combining the subleading power expansion of spinor-helicity …
We study collinear and soft singularities in perturbative quantum gravity by constructing an effective field theory similar to soft-collinear effective theory for QCD (SCET). We find that the soft sector exhibits factorization properties similar to those of SCET. The collinear sector is, however, quite different. While the leading-power collinear effective Lagrangian is trivial, the presence of the metric field $h_{++}$ with negative scaling dimension allows for collinear divergences in loop diagrams with couplings to non-collinear sources. We provide a compact proof of the well-known fact tha…
We construct "soft-collinear gravity", the effective field theory which describes the interaction of collinear and soft gravitons with matter (and themselves), to all orders in the soft-collinear power expansion. Despite the absence of collinear divergences in gravity at leading power, the construction exhibits remarkable similarities with soft-collinear effective theory of QCD (gauge fields). It reveals an emergent soft background gauge symmetry, which allows for a manifestly gauge-invariant representation of the interactions in terms of a soft covariant derivative, the soft Riemann tensor, a…
We analyze the transverse momentum broadening in the absence of radiation of an energetic parton propagating through quark-gluon plasma via Soft Collinear Effective Theory (SCET). We show that the probability for picking up transverse momentum k_\perp is given by the Fourier transform of the expectation value of two transversely separated light-like path-ordered Wilson lines. The subtleties about the ordering of operators do not change the \hat q value for the strongly coupled plasma of N=4 SYM theory.
It is argued that soft-collinear effective theory for processes involving both soft and collinear partons, such as exclusive B-meson decays, should include a new mode in addition to soft and collinear fields. These "soft-collinear messengers" can interact with both soft and collinear particles without taking them far off-shell. They thus can communicate between the soft and collinear sectors of the theory. The relevance of the new mode is demonstrated with an explicit example, and the formalism incorporating the corresponding quark and gluon fields into the effective Lagrangian is developed.
We present a conjecture for the $n$-gluon one-loop amplitudes with maximal helicity violation. The conjecture emerges from the powerful requirement that the amplitudes have the correct behavior in the collinear limits of external momenta. One implication is that the corresponding amplitudes where three or more gluon legs are replaced by photons vanish for $n>4$.
Factorization in gauge theories holds at the amplitude or amplitude-squared level for states of given soft or collinear momenta. When performing phase-space integrals over such states, one would generally like to avoid putting in explicit cuts to separate soft from collinear momenta. Removing these cuts induces an overcounting of the soft-collinear region and adds new infrared-ultraviolet divergences in the collinear region. In this paper, we first present a regulator-independent subtraction algorithm for removing soft-collinear overlap at the amplitude level which may be useful in pertubative…
We formulate N=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory in terms of soft-collinear effective theory. The effective Lagrangian in soft-collinear effective theory is developed according to the power counting by a small parameter η\sim p_{\perp}/Q. All the particles in this theory are in the adjoint representation of the SU(N) gauge group, and we derive the collinear gauge-invariant Lagrangian in the adjoint and fundamental representations respectively. We consider collinear and ultrasoft Wilson lines in this theory, and show the ultrasoft factorization of the collinear Lagrangian by redefining the col…
We provide a systematic BRST formalism for the soft-collinear effective theory describing interactions of soft and collinear degrees of freedom in the presence of a hard interaction. In particular, we develop full BRST symmetry transformation for SCET theory. We further extend the BRST formulation by making the transformation field dependent. This establishes a mapping between several SCET actions consistently when defined in different gauge conditions. In fact, a definite structure of gauge-fixed actions corresponding to any particular gauge condition can be generated for SCET theory using ou…
We investigate the structure of a particular class of massive vacuum Feynman integrals at two loops. This class enjoys the linear relation $m_1+m_2=m_3$ between its three propagator masses, corresponding to zeros of the associated Källén function. Apart from having applications in thermal field theory, the integrals can be mapped onto one-loop three-point functions with collinear external momenta, suggesting the term "collinear" masses. We present a closed-form solution for these integrals, proving that they can always be factorized into products of one-loop cases, for all integer-valued propa…
Factorization is possible due to the universal behavior of Yang-Mills theories in soft and collinear limits. Here, we take a small step towards a more transparent understanding of these limits by proving a form of perturbative factorization at tree- level using on-shell spinor helicity methods. We present a concrete and self-contained expression of factorization in which matrix elements in QCD are related to products of other matrix elements in QCD up to leading order in a power-counting parameter determined by the momenta of certain physical on-shell states. Our approach uses only the scaling…
In asymptotically free theories with collinear divergences it is sometimes claimed that these divergences cancel if one sums over initial and final state degenerate cross-sections and uses an off-shell renormalisation scheme. We show for scalar $ϕ^3$ theory in six dimensions that there are further classes of soft collinear divergences and that they do not cancel. Furthermore, they yield a non-convergent series of terms at a fixed order of perturbation theory. Similar effects in gauge theories are also summarised.
It has recently been argued that soft-collinear effective theory for processes involving both soft and collinear partons contains a new soft-collinear mode, which can communicate between the soft and collinear sectors of the theory. The formalism incorporating the corresponding fields into the effective Lagrangian is extended to include external current and four-quark operators relevant to weak interactions. An explicit calculation of the anomalous dimensions of these operators reveals that soft-collinear modes are needed for correctly describing the ultraviolet behavior of the effective theor…
We discuss how higher-point QCD amplitudes may be constructed from lower point ones by imposing the factorization constraints in the limits as external momenta become collinear. As a particular example, the all-$n$ gluon one-loop amplitude with maximal helicity violation is presented. We also discuss the necessary collinear behavior of the $n$-gluon amplitudes.
We construct the soft-collinear effective Lagrangian which is manifestly gauge invariant order by order. Field redefinitions of collinear gauge fields and a proper decomposition of quark fields are necessary to make the Lagrangian gauge invariant. We can obtain the effective Lagrangian order by order in SCET_I and SCET_II by adopting appropriate power counting methods. Various types of current operators can be investigated using this formalism, and we choose the soft-collinear current as a specific example to present explicit radiative corrections. The hard-collinear, collinear, and ultrasoft …
We obtain analytic results for integrated triple-collinear splitting functions that emerge as collinear counter-terms in the context of the nested soft-collinear subtraction scheme arXiv:1702.01352 . With these results, all integrated subtraction terms required for NNLO QCD computations within this scheme are known analytically. In addition to improving efficiency and numerical stability of practical computations, the availability of these results will contribute towards establishing a general NNLO QCD subtraction formula for generic hard scattering processes in hadron collisions, similar to C…
We derive an all order resummation formula for the deeply virtual Compton scattering (DVCS) amplitude, which takes into account soft gluon exchanges in the non-singlet quark coefficient function. We identify the ladder diagrams responsible in light-like gauge for [alphaS log^2 (x +/- xi)]^n contributions. The resummed series results in a simple closed expression.
Collinear fields in soft collinear effective theory (SCET) can be made invariant under collinear gauge transformations by multiplying them with collinear Wilson lines. We discuss how we can quantize SCET directly in terms of these gauge invariant fields, allowing to directly calculate S matrix elements using the gauge invariant collinear fields. We also show how for each collinear direction SCET can be written in terms of fields whose interactions are given by the usual QCD Lagrangian, and how external operators coupling these different directions can be constructed.
Soft Collinear Effective Theory (SCET) is an effective field theory of Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) for processes where there are energetic, nearly lightlike degrees of freedom interacting with one another via soft radiation. SCET has found many applications in high-energy and nuclear physics, especially in recent years the physics of hadronic jets in $e^+e^-$, lepton-hadron, hadron-hadron, and heavy-ion collisions. SCET can be used to factorize multi-scale cross sections in these processes into single-scale hard, collinear, and soft functions, and to evolve these through the renormalization g…
These lectures provide an introduction to Soft-Collinear Effective Theory. As applications we discuss resummation for (i) soft-photon effects in QED, (ii) event-shape variables and (iii) jet cross sections.
Starting with QCD, we derive an effective field theory description for forward scattering and factorization violation as part of the soft-collinear effective field theory (SCET) for high energy scattering. These phenomena are mediated by long distance Glauber gluon exchanges, which are static in time, localized in the longitudinal distance, where $|t| \ll s$. In hard scattering, Glauber gluons can induce corrections which invalidate factorization. With SCET, Glauber exchange graphs can be calculated explicitly, and are distinct from graphs with soft, collinear, or ultrasoft gluons. We derive a…
We introduce collinear drop jet substructure observables, which are unaffected by contributions from collinear radiation, and systematically probe soft radiation within jets. These observables can be designed to be either sensitive or insensitive to process-dependent soft radiation originating from outside the jet. Such collinear drop observables can be exploited as variables to distinguish quark, gluon, and color neutral initiated jets, for testing predictions for perturbative soft radiation in Monte Carlo simulations, for assessing models and universality for hadronization corrections, for e…
This letter provides a superfield based approach to constructing a collinear slice of $\mathcal{N}$ = 1 superspace. The strategy is analogous to integrating out anti-collinear fermionic degrees-of-freedom as was developed in the context of soft-collinear effective theory. The resulting Lagrangian can be understood as an integral over collinear superspace, where half the supercoordinates have been integrated out. The application to $\mathcal{N}$ = 1 super Yang-Mills is presented. Collinear superspace provides the foundation for future explorations of supersymmetric soft-collinear effective theo…
I present analytical expressions for the collinear and soft gluon corrections to Higgs production via the process b bbar -> H as well as gg -> H through next-to-next-to-next-to-leading order (NNNLO). The soft corrections are complete while the collinear corrections include leading and some subleading logarithms. Numerical results at the Tevatron and the LHC are presented, primarily for b bbar -> H. It is shown that the collinear terms greatly improve the soft and virtual approximation at next-to-leading order (NLO) and next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO), especially when subleading terms are …
We introduce a method for the separation of soft and collinear logarithms in QCD parton evolution at $\mathcal{O}(α_s^2)$ and at leading color. Using an implementation of the technique in the Dire parton shower, we analyze the numerical impact of genuine triple-collinear corrections from quark pair emission in $e^+e^-\to$ hadrons.
Soft-collinear effective theory (SCET) has become a standard tool to study the factorization of short- and long-distance effects in processes involving low-energetic (soft) particles and high-energetic/low-virtuality (collinear) modes. In this contribution I give a brief overview on recent results for inclusive and exclusive B decays and on applications in collider physics.
In soft-collinear effective theory, we analyze the structure of rapidity divergence due to the collinear and soft modes residing in disparate phase spaces. The idea of an effective theory is applied to a system of collinear modes with large rapidity and soft modes with small rapidity. The large-rapidity (collinear) modes are integrated out to obtain the effective theory for the small-rapidity (soft) modes. The full SCET with the collinear and soft modes should be matched onto the soft theory at the rapidity boundary, and the matching procedure becomes exactly the zero-bin subtraction. The larg…
I briefly review some general features and some recent developments concerning the resummation of long-distance singularities in QCD and in more general non-abelian gauge theories. I emphasize the field-theoretical tools of the trade, and focus mostly on the exponentiation of infrared and collinear divergences in amplitudes, which underlies the resummation of large logarithms in the corresponding cross sections. I then describe some recent results concerning the conformal limit, notably the case of N = 4 superymmetric Yang-Mills theory
We present analytic formulas that describe fully-differential production of color-singlet final states in $q\bar q$ and $gg$ annihilation, including all the relevant partonic channels, through NNLO QCD. We work within the nested soft-collinear scheme which allows for fully local subtraction of infrared divergences. We demonstrate analytic cancellation of soft and collinear poles and present formulas for finite parts of all integrated subtraction terms. These results provide an important building block for calculating NNLO QCD corrections to arbitrary processes at hadron colliders within the ne…
We discuss restrictions on operators in the soft-collinear effective theory (SCET) which follow from the ambiguity in the decomposition of collinear momenta and the freedom in the choice of light-like basis vectors $n$ and $\bar n$. Invariance of SCET under small changes in $n$ and/or $\bar n$ implies a symmetry of the effective theory that constrains the form of allowed operators with collinear fields. The restrictions occur at a given order in the power counting as well as between different orders. As an example, we present the complete set of higher order operators that are related to the c…
We propose the addition of a new "soft-collinear" mode to soft collinear effective theory (SCET) below the usual soft scale to factorize and resum logarithms of jet radii $R$ in jet cross sections. We consider exclusive 2-jet cross sections in $e^+e^-$ collisions with an energy veto $Λ$ on additional jets. The key observation is that there are actually two pairs of energy scales whose ratio is $R$: the transverse momentum $QR$ of the energetic particles inside jets and their total energy $Q$, and the transverse momentum $ΛR$ of soft particles that are cut out of the jet cones and their energy …
In this talk I review an effective field theory that has been developed for processes with energetic hadrons, referred to as the Soft-Collinear Effective Theory. After outlining properties of the effective theory I briefly discuss its application to the processes B -> D pi and B -> Xs gamma.
Soft-collinear effective theory provides a systematic theoretical framework to describe the factorization of short- and long-distance QCD dynamics in hard-scattering processes that contain both, soft and energetic particles/jets. I present a short guide to recent theoretical achievements and to phenomenological applications in heavy B-meson decays.
The soft and collinear singularities of general scalar and tensor one-loop N-point integrals are worked out explicitly. As a result a simple explicit formula is given that expresses the singular part in terms of 3-point integrals. Apart from predicting the singularities, this result can be used to transfer singular one-loop integrals from one regularization scheme to another or to subtract soft and collinear singularities from one-loop Feynman diagrams directly in momentum space.
The factorization of soft and ultrasoft gluons from collinear particles is shown at the level of operators in an effective field theory. Exclusive hadronic factorization and inclusive partonic factorization follow as special cases. The leading order Lagrangian is derived using power counting and gauge invariance in the effective theory. Several species of gluons are required, and softer gluons appear as background fields to gluons with harder momenta. Two examples are given: the factorization of soft gluons in B->D pi, and the soft-collinear convolution for the B->Xs gamma spectrum.
I discuss general unified formulas for resumming collinear and soft contributions to QCD hard scattering cross sections at large x. Expansions of the resummed cross sections to next-to-next-to-next-to-leading order are also shown along with applications of the formalism.
Radiative corrections to high energy scattering processes were given previously in terms of universal soft and collinear functions. This paper gives the collinear functions for all standard model particles, the general form of the soft function, and explicit expressions for the soft functions for fermion-fermion scattering, longitudinal and transverse gauge boson production, single W/Z production, and associated Higgs production. An interesting subtlety in the use of the Goldstone boson equivalence theorem for longitudinal W+ production is discussed.
We consider Drell-Yan process in the threshold region $z\to 1$ where large logarithms appear due to soft-gluon radiations. We present a soft-collinear effective theory approach to re-sum these Sudakov-type logarithms following an earlier treatment of deep inelastic scattering, and the result is consistent with that obtained earlier through perturbative QCD factorization
We study the impact of leading soft-collinear effects on threshold and joint-resummed calculations for the production of prompt photons via parton fragmentation, complementing a previous study for direct production. We assess these effects for both fixed-target and collider kinematics. We find them to be small, but noticeable and comparable to the direct case.
Heavy-to-light transition form factors at large recoil energy of the light meson have been conjectured to obey a factorization formula, where the set of form factors is reduced to a smaller number of universal form factors up to hard-scattering corrections. In this paper we extend our previous investigation of heavy-to-light currents in soft-collinear effective theory to final states with invariant mass Lambda^2 as is appropriate to exclusive B meson decays. The effective theory contains soft modes and two collinear modes with virtualities of order m_b*Lambda (`hard-collinear') and Lambda^2. I…
We present analytic results that describe fully-differential NNLO QCD corrections to deep-inelastic scattering processes within the nested soft-collinear subtraction scheme. This is the last building block required for the application of this scheme to computations of NNLO QCD corrections to arbitrary processes at hadron colliders.
In this talk I review soft collinear effective theory. After a discussion of the formalism and properties of the effective field theory, I turn to phenomenology. I present results on color-suppressed B to D decays, and on the Upsilon radiative decay spectrum.
In soft collinear effective theory (SCET) the interaction between high energy quarks moving in opposite directions involving momentum transfer much smaller than the center-of-mass energy is described by the Glauber interaction operator which has two-dimensional Coulomb-like behavior. Here, we determine this $n$-$\bar{n}$ collinear Glauber interaction operator and consider its renormalization properties at one loop. At this order a rapidity divergence appears which gives rise to an infrared divergent (IR) rapidity anomalous dimension commonly called the gluon Regge trajectory. We then go on to …
Starting from the first renormalized factorization theorem for a process described at subleading power in soft-collinear effective theory, we discuss the resummation of Sudakov logarithms for such processes in renormalization-group improved perturbation theory. Endpoint divergences in convolution integrals, which arise generically beyond leading power, are regularized and removed by systematically rearranging the factorization formula. We study in detail the example of the $b$-quark induced $h\toγγ$ decay of the Higgs boson, for which we resum large logarithms of the ratio $M_h/m_b$ at next-to…
In high-energy processes which are sensitive to small transverse momenta, individual contributions from collinear and soft momentum regions are not separately well-defined in dimensional regularization. A simple possibility to solve this problem is to introduce additional analytic regulators. We point out that in massless theories the unregularized singularities only appear in real-emission diagrams and that the additional regulators can be introduced in such a way that gauge invariance and the factorized eikonal structure of soft and collinear emissions is maintained. This simplifies factoriz…
The effects of the soft gluon emission in hard scattering processes at the phase boundary are resummed in the soft-collinear effective theory (SCET). In SCET, the soft gluon emission is decoupled from the energetic collinear part, and is obtained by the vacuum expectation value of the soft Wilson-line operator. The form of the soft Wilson lines is universal in deep inelastic scattering, in the Drell-Yan process, in the jet production from e+e- collisions, and in the gamma* gamma* -> pi0 process, but its analytic structure is slightly different in each process. The anomalous dimensions of the s…
We provide a precise statement of hard-soft-collinear factorization of scattering amplitudes and prove it to all orders in perturbation theory. Factorization is formulated as the equality at leading power of scattering amplitudes in QCD with other amplitudes in QCD computed from a product of operator matrix elements. The equivalence is regulator independent and gauge independent. As the formulation relates amplitudes to the same amplitudes with additional soft or collinear particles, it includes as special cases the factorization of soft currents and collinear splitting functions from generic …
An extension to the Soft-Collinear-Effective Theory (SCET) description of hard jets is motivated to include the leading contributions between the propagating partons within the jet with partons radiated from a dense extended medium. The resulting effective Lagrangian, containing both a leading and a power suppressed (in the hard scale $Q^2$) contribution, arises primarily from interactions between the hard collinear modes in the jet with Glauber modes from the medium. In this first attempt, the interactions between the hard jet and soft and collinear partonic modes have been ignored, in an eff…
We consider the definition of a transverse-momentum-dependent parton distribution function (TMDPDF) and its evolution properties given a factorization theorem of Drell- Yan lepton pair production with a non-vanishing transverse momentum. We discuss rapidity divergences that exist in both limits of QCD: the soft and collinear. We argue that only when a specific combination of the soft and collinear matrix elements is formed, rapidity divergences cancel. We also argue that the soft matrix element, calculated in perturbation theory, contains only rapidity divergences and there is no genuine long-…
We calculate the quark coefficient function Tq(x,xi) that enters the factorized amplitude for deeply virtual Compton scattering (DVCS) at all order in a soft and collinear gluon approximation, focusing on the leading double logarithmic behavior in x +/- xi, where x +/- xi is the light cone momentum fraction of the incoming/outgoing quarks. We show that the dominant part of the known one loop result can be understood in an axial gauge as the result of a semi-eikonal approximation to the box diagram. We then derive an all order result for the leading contribution of the ladder diagrams and deduc…
