We calculate the complete quark and gluon cusp anomalous dimensions in four-loop massless QCD analytically from first principles. In addition, we determine the complete matter dependence of the quark and gluon collinear anomalous dimensions. Our approach is to Laurent expand four-loop quark and gluon form factors in the parameter of dimensional regularization. We employ finite field and syzygy techniques to reduce the relevant Feynman integrals to a basis of finite integrals, and subsequently evaluate the basis integrals directly from their standard parametric representations.
We present numerical results for the nonplanar lightlike cusp and collinear anomalous dimension at four loops in ${\mathcal N} = 4$ SYM theory, which we infer from a calculation of the Sudakov form factor. The latter is expressed as a rational linear combination of uniformly transcendental integrals for arbitrary colour factor. Numerical integration in the nonplanar sector reveals explicitly the breakdown of quadratic Casimir scaling at the four-loop order. A thorough analysis of the reported numerical uncertainties is carried out.
I present analytical expressions for the cusp anomalous dimension in QCD through three loops in terms of elementary functions and ordinary polylogarithms. I observe interesting relations between the results at different loops and provide a conjecture for the $n$-loop cusp anomalous dimension in terms of the lower-loop results. I also present numerical results and simple approximate formulas for the cusp anomalous dimension relevant to top-quark production.
We present an analytic derivation of the full four-loop cusp anomalous dimension of $\mathcal{N}=4$ supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory from the Sudakov form factor. To extract the cusp anomalous dimension, we calculate the $ε^{-2}$ pole of the form factor using parametric integrations of finite integrals. We provide uniformly transcendental results for the master integrals through to weight six and confirm a very recent independent analytic result for the full four-loop cusp anomalous dimension of the $\mathcal{N}=4$ model.
We present the full analytic result for the three-loop angle-dependent cusp anomalous dimension in QCD. With this result, infrared divergences of planar scattering processes with massive particles can be predicted to that order. Moreover, we define a closely related quantity in terms of an effective coupling defined by the light-like cusp anomalous dimension. We find evidence that this quantity is universal for any gauge theory, and use this observation to predict the non-planar $n_{f}$-dependent terms of the four-loop cusp anomalous dimension.
We calculate the collinear anomalous dimensions in massless four-loop QCD and $\mathcal{N} = 4$ supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory from the infrared poles of vertex form factors. We give very precise numerical approximations and a conjecture for the complete analytic results in both models we consider.
We construct an exact analytical solution to the integral equation which is believed to describe logarithmic growth of the anomalous dimensions of high spin operators in planar N=4 super Yang-Mills theory and use it to determine the strong coupling expansion of the cusp anomalous dimension.
We derive an analytic formula at three loops for the cusp anomalous dimension Gamma_cusp(phi) in N=4 super Yang-Mills. This is done by exploiting the relation of the latter to the Regge limit of massive amplitudes. We comment on the corresponding three loops quark anti-quark potential. Our result also determines a considerable part of the three-loop cusp anomalous dimension in QCD. Finally, we consider a limit in which only ladder diagrams contribute to physical observables. In that limit, a precise agreement with strong coupling is observed.
We compute the four-loop $n_f$ contribution proportional to the quartic Casimir of the QCD cusp anomalous dimension as an expansion for small cusp angle $ϕ$. This piece is gauge invariant, violates Casimir scaling, and first appears at four loops. It requires the evaluation of genuine non-planar four-loop Feynman integrals. We present results up to ${\mathcal O}(ϕ^4)$. One motivation for our calculation is to probe a recent conjecture on the all-order structure of the cusp anomalous dimension. As a byproduct we obtain the four-loop HQET wave function anomalous dimension for this color structur…
We compute the nonplanar contribution to the universal anomalous dimension of the SU(4)-singlet twist-two operators in N=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory at four loops through Lorentz spin 18. From this, we numerically evaluate the nonplanar contribution to the four-loop lightlike cusp anomalous dimension and derive the transcendental $ζ_3$ and $ζ_5$ parts of the universal anomalous dimension for arbitrary Lorentz spin in analytic form. As for the lightlike cusp anomalous dimension and the $ζ_5$ part of the universal anomalous dimension, we confirm previous results.
We compute the fermionic contributions to the cusp anomalous dimension in QCD at four loops as an expansion for small cusp angle. As a byproduct we also obtain the respective terms of the four-loop HQET wave function anomalous dimension. Our new results at small angles provide stringent tests of a recent conjecture for the exact angle dependence of the matter terms in the four-loop cusp anomalous dimension. We find that the conjecture does not hold for two of the seven fermionic color structures, but passes all tests for the remaining terms. This provides strong support for the validity of the…
We present the details of the analytic calculation of the three-loop angle-dependent cusp anomalous dimension in QCD and its supersymmetric extensions, including the maximally supersymmetric $\mathcal{N}=4$ super Yang-Mills theory. The three-loop result in the latter theory is new and confirms a conjecture made in our previous paper. We study various physical limits of the cusp anomalous dimension and discuss its relation to the quark-antiquark potential including the effects of broken conformal symmetry in QCD. We find that the cusp anomalous dimension viewed as a function of the cusp angle a…
We calculate the small angle expansion of the four-loop QCD cusp anomalous dimension. As a byproduct of our calculation, we also obtain the four-loop anomalous dimension of the heavy-quark field in HQET. The validity of the calculational setup is cross-checked by the independent calculation of the four-loop QCD beta-function from heavy-quark-gluon vertex renormalization in HQET. We check the obtained results for the cusp anomalous dimension and heavy-quark field anomalous dimension against available analytical and numerical results. Finally, we find that the maximal transcendentality contribut…
I discuss 3 related quantities: the cusp anomalous dimension, the HQET heavy-quark field anomalous dimension, and the quark-antiquark potential. Leading large $n_f$ terms can be calculated to all orders in $α_s$. Next to leading terms with the abelian color structure $C_F^2$ also can be found to all orders (but not non-abelian $C_F C_A$ terms). This talk is based on Appendices C and D in [arXiv:1510.07803].
I present a general method for determining the massive cusp anomalous dimension in QCD to a very high degree of accuracy using its asymptotic behavior at small and large quark velocities. I show that the method works exceedingly well at two and three loops where exact results are already known. I then present a calculation of the massive cusp anomalous dimension using its asymptotics at four loops, and I provide a detailed study of the results for different values of the number of flavors and for separate color structures. The method can be further extended and applied to higher numbers of loo…
In this talk we present the result for the $n_f$ dependent piece of the three-loop cusp anomalous dimension in QCD. Remarkably, it is parametrized by the same simple functions appearing in analogous anomalous dimensions in ${\mathcal N}=4$ SYM at one and two loops. We also compute all required master integrals using a recently proposed refinement of the differential equation method. The analytic results are expressed in terms of harmonic polylogarithms of uniform weight.
We compute the fermionic contribution to the photon-quark form factor to four-loop order in QCD in the planar limit in analytic form. From the divergent part of the latter the cusp and collinear anomalous dimensions are extracted. Results are also presented for the finite contribution. We briefly describe our method to compute all planar master integrals at four-loop order.
Nonplanar Four-Loop Anomalous Dimensions of Twist-Two Operators in N=4 Super Yang-Mills Theory: Higher Moment, General Result, and Cusp Anomalous Dimension
We compute analytically the matter-dependent contributions to the quartic Casimir term of the four-loop light-like cusp anomalous dimension in QCD, with $n_f$ fermion and $n_s$ scalar flavours. The result is extracted from the double pole of a scalar form factor. We adopt a new strategy for the choice of master integrals with simple analytic and infrared properties, which significantly simplifies our calculation. To this end we first identify a set of integrals whose integrands have a dlog form, and are hence expected to have uniform transcendental weight. We then perform a systematic analysis…
The light-like cusp anomalous dimension is a universal function that controls infrared divergences in quite general quantum field theories. In the maximally supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory this function is fixed fully by integrability to the three-loop order. At four loops a non-planar correction appears which we obtain for the first time from a numerical computation of the Sudakov form factor. Key ingredients are widely applicable methods to control the number-theoretic aspects of the appearing integrals. Our result shows explicitly that quadratic Casimir scaling breaks down at four loops.
We present the complete formula for the cusp anomalous dimension at four loops in QCD and in maximally supersymmetric Yang-Mills. In the latter theory it is given by \begin{equation} Γ^{\rm}_{\rm cusp}\Big|_{α_s^4} = -\left( \frac{α_s N}π\right)^4 \left[ \frac{73 π^6}{20160} + \frac{ ζ_{3}^2}{8} + \frac{1}{N^2} \left( \frac{31π^6}{5040} + \frac{9 ζ_3^2}{4} \right) \right] \,.\nonumber \end{equation} Our approach is based on computing the correlation function of a rectangular light-like Wilson loop with a Lagrangian insertion, normalized by the expectation value of the Wilson loop. In maximally…
We consider the extension of the CMW soft-gluon effective coupling in the context of soft-gluon resummation for QCD hard-scattering observables beyond the next-to-leading logarithmic accuracy. We present two proposals of a soft-gluon effective coupling that extend the CMW coupling to all perturbative orders in the \ms\ coupling $\as$. Although both effective couplings are well-defined in the physical four-dimensional space time, we examine their behaviour in $d=4 -2\ep$ space time dimensions. We uncover an all-order perturbative relation with the cusp anomalous dimension: the (four dimensional…
Correlation functions of Wilson lines are relevant for describing the infrared structure of scattering amplitudes. We develop a new method for evaluating a wide class of such Wilson line integrals, and apply it to the calculation of the velocity-dependent cusp anomalous dimension in maximally supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory. We compute the four-loop non-planar correction in a recently introduced scaling limit. Moreover, we derive the full planar four-loop result by means of an ansatz which is based on the structure of known analytic results. We determine the coefficients in this ansatz by mak…
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 continue the investigation of the anomalous dimension of subleading-power $N$-jet operators. In this paper, we focus on the operators with fermion number one in each collinear direction, corresponding to quark (antiquark) initiated jets in QCD. We investigate the renormalization effects induced by the soft loop and compute the one-loop mixing of time-ordered products involving power-suppressed SCET Lagrangian insertions into $N$-jet currents through soft loops. We discuss fermion number conservation in collinear directions and provide explicit results for the collinear anomalous dimension m…
We compute the four-loop QCD corrections to the massless quark-anti-quark-photon form factor $F_q$ in the large-$N_c$ limit. From the pole part we extract analytic expressions for the corresponding cusp and collinear anomalous dimensions.
Recently a new picture has been developed for examining Wilson lines, and the corresponding anomalous dimensions which govern their renormalization properties. By making a particular coordinate transform, the calculation of the cusp anomalous dimension in QED or QCD can be related to the energy of a pair of static charges in Euclidean Anti-de-Sitter (AdS) space. This paper shows how the same picture can be used to describe Wilson lines in quantum gravity. We show how the relevant cusp anomalous dimension (which has recently been shown to be one loop exact) can be obtained using the Newtonian l…
We review the current status of calculations of the HQET field anomalous dimension and the cusp anomalous dimension. In particular, we give the results at 4 loops for the quartic Casimir contribution, and for the full QED case, up to $φ^6$ in the small angle expansion. Furthermore, we discuss the leading terms in the anti-parallel lines limit at four loops.
The angle-dependent cusp anomalous dimension governs divergences coming from soft gluon exchanges between heavy particles, such as top quarks. We focus on the matter-dependent contributions and compute the first truly non-planar terms. They appear at four loops and are proportional to a quartic Casimir operator in color space. Specializing our general gauge theory result to U(1), we obtain the full QED four-loop angle-dependent cusp anomalous dimension. While more complicated functions appear at intermediate steps, the analytic answer depends only on multiple polylogarithms with singularities …
University of Oxford（牛津大学）；CERN（欧洲核子研究组织）；École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)（洛桑联邦理工学院）；Arizona State University（亚利桑那州立大学）；University of Amsterdam（阿姆斯特丹大学）
Jet grooming has emerged as a necessary and vital tool for mitigating contamination radiation in jets. The additional restrictions on emissions imposed by the groomer can result in non-smooth behavior of resulting fixed-order distributions of observables measured on groomed jets. As a concrete example, we study the cusp in the hemisphere mass distribution of $e^+e^-\to$ hadrons events groomed with soft drop. We identify the leading emissions that contribute in the region about the cusp and formulate an all-orders factorization theorem that describes how the cusp is resolved through arbitrary s…
We have computed the contributions of the quartic Casimir invariants to the four-loop anomalous dimensions of twist-2 spin-N operators at N =< 16. The results provide new information on the structure of the next-to-next-to-next-to-leading order (N^3LO) splitting functions P_{ik}^(3)(x) for the evolution of parton distributions, and facilitate approximate expressions which include the quartic-Casimir contributions to the (light-like) gluon cusp anomalous dimension. These quantities turn out to be closely related, by a generalization of the lower-order `Casimir scaling', to the corresponding qua…
We study the factorization of soft and collinear singularities in dimensionally-regularized fixed-angle scattering amplitudes in massless gauge theories. Our factorization is based on replacing the hard massless partons by light-like Wilson lines, and defining gauge-invariant jet and soft functions in dimensional regularization. In this scheme the factorized amplitude admits a powerful symmetry: it is invariant under rescaling of individual Wilson-line velocities. This symmetry is broken by cusp singularities in both the soft and the eikonal jet functions. We show that the cancellation of thes…
We present an expression for the leading-color (planar) four-loop four-point amplitude of N=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory in 4-2 e dimensions, in terms of eight separate integrals. The expression is based on consistency of unitarity cuts and infrared divergences. We expand the integrals around e=0, and obtain analytic expressions for the poles from 1/e^8 through 1/e^4. We give numerical results for the coefficients of the 1/e^3 and 1/e^2 poles. These results all match the known exponentiated structure of the infrared divergences, at four separate kinematic points. The value of the 1/e^2 c…
We work out in the forward limit and up to order $e^6$ in perturbation theory the collinear divergences. In this kinematical regime we discover new collinear divergences that we argue can be only cancelled using quantum interference with processes contributing to the gauge anomaly. This rules out the possibility of a quantum consistent and anomaly free theory with massless charges and long range interactions. We use the anomalous threshold singularities to derive a gravitational lower bound on the mass of the lightest charged fermion.
We study the velocity-dependent cusp anomalous dimension in supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory. In a paper by Correa, Maldacena, Sever, and one of the present authors, a scaling limit was identified in which the ladder diagrams are dominant and are mapped onto a Schrodinger problem. We show how to solve the latter in perturbation theory and provide an algorithm to compute the solution at any loop order. The answer is written in terms of harmonic polylogarithms. Moreover, we give evidence for two curious properties of the result. Firstly, we observe that the result can be written using a subset o…
The 4-loop $C_F^3 T_F n_l$ and 5-loop $C_F^4 T_F n_l$ terms in the HQET field anomalous dimension $γ_h$ are calculated analytically (the 4-loop one agrees with the recent numerical result [arXiv:1801.08292]). The 4-loop $C_F^3 T_F n_l$ and 5-loop $C_F^4 T_F n_l$ terms in the cusp anomalous dimension $Γ(φ)$ are calculated analytically, exactly in $φ$ (the $φ\to\infty$ asymptotics of the 4-loop one agrees with the recent numerical result [arXiv:1707.08315]). Combining these results with the recent 4-loop $d_{FF} n_l$ contributions to $γ_h$ and to the small-$φ$ expansion of $Γ(φ)$ up to $φ^4$ [ar…
The velocity-dependent cusp anomalous dimension is by definition the ultraviolet (UV) anomalous dimension of a Wilson loop with a cusp. It appears in many physically interesting processes. In this talk we present recent progress in the analytic calculation of that quantity.
I discuss collinear and infrared divergences in QCD cross sections with massless and massive final-state particles. I present the two-loop renormalization group evolution and resummation in terms of anomalous dimensions, and I show specific results for a variety of QCD hard-scattering processes.
We present the three-loop result for the soft anomalous dimension governing long-distance singularities of multi-leg gauge-theory scattering amplitudes of massless partons. We compute all contributing webs involving semi-infinite Wilson lines at three loops and obtain the complete three-loop correction to the dipole formula. We find that non-dipole corrections appear already for three coloured partons, where the correction is a constant without kinematic dependence. Kinematic dependence appears only through conformally-invariant cross ratios for four coloured partons or more, and the result ca…
We construct the minimal surface in AdS, relevant for the strong coupling behaviour of local supersymmetric Wilson loops in N=4 SYM for a closed contour formed out of segments of two intersecting circles. Its regularised area is calculated including all divergent parts and the finite renormalised term. Furthermore we prove, that for generic planar curved contours with cusps the cusp anomalous dimensions are functions of the respective cusp angles alone. They do not depend on other local data of the cusps.
Recently, an all-order conjecture for the anomalous-dimension matrix of n-jet operators in SCET was proposed, which allows one to predict the structure of the infrared divergences of dimensionally regularized, massless gauge-theory scattering amplitudes with an arbitrary number of legs and loops. The conjecture is severely constrained by soft-collinear factorization, non-abelian exponentiation, and the behavior of amplitudes in collinear limits. Using these constraints, a diagrammatic analysis has shown that the anomalous dimension involves only two-parton correlators up to three loop order. T…
Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara（加州大学圣塔芭芭拉分校卡弗里理论物理研究所）；Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory（劳伦斯伯克利国家实验室）
We begin a systematic investigation of the anomalous dimension of subleading power N-jet operators in view of resummation of logarithmically enhanced terms in partonic cross sections beyond leading power. We provide an explicit result at the one-loop order for fermion-number two N-jet operators at the second order in the power expansion parameter of soft-collinear effective theory.
Inequalities are derived for Wilson loops generalizing the well-known Bachas inequality for rectangular contours. The inequalities are compatible with the area law for large contours. The Polyakov cusp anomalous dimension of Wilson lines (playing an important role in QCD applications to hard processes) has a convex angular dependence. This convexity is crucial for the consistency of the inequalities with renormalization. Some parallel properties can be found in the string theory. The Kac-Ray cusp term from the "shape of a drum" problem has the same angular convexity property and plays the role…
A closed formula is obtained for the infrared singularities of dimensionally regularized, massless gauge-theory scattering amplitudes with an arbitrary number of legs and loops. It follows from an all-order conjecture for the anomalous-dimension matrix of n-jet operators in soft-collinear effective theory. We show that the form of this anomalous dimension is severely constrained by soft-collinear factorization, non-abelian exponentiation, and the behavior of amplitudes in collinear limits. Using a diagrammatic analysis, we demonstrate that these constraints imply that to three-loop order the a…
Soft-collinear effective theory (SCET) is used to sum Sudakov double-logarithms in the x ->1 endpoint region for the deep inelastic scattering structure function. The calculations are done in both the target rest frame and the Breit frame. The separation of scales in the effective theory implies that the anomalous dimension of the SCET current is linear in ln mu, and the anomalous dimension for the Nth moment of the structure function is linear in ln N, to all orders in perturbation theory. The SCET formulation is shown to be free of Landau pole singularities. Some important differences betwee…
We report on recent progress on the splitting functions for the evolution of parton distributions and related quantities, the (lightlike) cusp anomalous dimensions, in perturbative QCD. New results are presented for the four-loop (next-to-next-to-next-to-leading order, N^3LO) contributions to the flavour-singlet splitting functions and the gluon cusp anomalous dimension. We present first results, the moments N=2 and N=3, for the five-loop (N^4LO) non-singlet splitting functions.
We present compact integral representations for the calculation of two-loop anomalous dimensions for a generic class of soft functions that are defined in terms of two light-like Wilson lines. Our results are relevant for the resummation of Sudakov logarithms for e+ e- event-shape variables and inclusive hadron-collider observables at next-to-next-to-leading logarithmic accuracy within Soft-Collinear Effective Theory (SCET). Our formalism applies to both SCET-1 and SCET-2 soft functions and we clarify the relation between the respective soft anomalous dimension and the collinear anomaly expone…
We discuss recent developments in the understanding of gauge-invariant transverse-momentum dependent (TMD) parton-distribution functions (PDF). We compute the leading-order $\overline{\text{MS}\vphantom{^1}}$-scheme anomalous dimension of such a quantity in the light-cone gauge and show that it receives a contribution that can be associated with a cusp obstruction at transverse light-cone infinity. This anomalous dimension is intimately related to expectation values composed of fields and eikonal factors along a cusped contour and is absent in covariant gauges. The implications of these findin…
We compute the non-planar contribution to the universal anomalous dimension of twist-two operators in N=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory at four loops through Lorentz spin eighteen. Exploiting the results of this and our previous calculations along with recent analytic results for the cusp anomalous dimension and some expected analytic properties, we reconstruct a general expression valid for arbitrary Lorentz spin. We study various properties of this general result, such as its large-spin limit, its small-x limit, and others. In particular, we present a prediction for the non-planar contrib…
We calculate the anomalous dimensions of the next-to-leading order dijet operators in soft-collinear effective theory (SCET). We use a formulation of SCET where the Lagrangian is multiple copies of QCD and the interactions between sectors occur through light-like Wilson lines in external currents. We introduce a small gluon mass to regulate the infrared divergences of the individual loop diagrams in order to properly extract the ultraviolet divergences. We discuss this choice of infrared regulator and contrast it with the $δ$-regulator. Our results can be used to increase the theoretical preci…
We study the Sudakov form factor for a spontaneously broken gauge theory using a (new) Delta -regulator. To be well-defined, the effective theory requires zero-bin subtractions for the collinear sectors. The zero-bin subtractions depend on the gauge boson mass M and are not scaleless. They have both finite and 1/epsilon contributions, and are needed to give the correct anomalous dimension and low-scale matching contributions. We also demonstrate the necessity of zero-bin subtractions for soft-collinear factorization. We find that after zero-bin subtractions the form factor is the sum of the co…
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…
