Correlators of Wilson-line operators are fundamental ingredients for the study of the infrared properties of non-abelian gauge theories. In perturbation theory, they are known to exponentiate, and their logarithm can be organised in terms of collections of Feynman diagrams called webs. We study the classification of webs to high perturbative orders, proposing a set of tools to generate them recursively: in particular, we introduce the concept of Cweb, or correlator web, which is a set of skeleton diagrams built with connected gluon correlators, instead of individual Feynman diagrams. As an application, we enumerate all Cwebs entering the soft anomalous dimension matrix for multi-parton scattering amplitudes at four loops, and we compute the mixing matrices for all Cwebs connecting four or five Wilson lines at that loop order, verifying that they obey sum rules that were derived or conjectured in the literature. Our results provide the colour building blocks for the calculation of the soft anomalous dimension matrix at four-loop order.
We consider the recently developed diagrammatic approach to soft-gluon exponentiation in multiparton scattering amplitudes, where the exponent is written as a sum of webs - closed sets of diagrams whose colour and kinematic parts are entangled via mixing matrices. A complementary approach to exponentiation is based on the multiplicative renormalizability of intersecting Wilson lines, and their subsequent finite anomalous dimension. Relating this framework to that of webs, we derive renormalization constraints expressing all multiple poles of any given web in terms of lower-order webs. We exami…
Recently, the diagrammatic description of soft-gluon exponentiation in scattering amplitudes has been generalized to the multiparton case. It was shown that the exponent of Wilson-line correlators is a sum of webs, where each web is formed through mixing between the kinematic factors and colour factors of a closed set of diagrams which are mutually related by permuting the gluon attachments to the Wilson lines. In this paper we use replica trick methods, as well as results from enumerative combinatorics, to prove that web mixing matrices are always: (a) idempotent, thus acting as projection op…
Soft gluon exponentiation in non-abelian gauge theories can be described in terms of webs. So far this description has been restricted to amplitudes with two hard partons, where webs were defined as the colour-connected subset of diagrams. Here we generalise the concept of webs to the multi-leg case, where the hard interaction involves non-trivial colour flow. Using the replica trick from statistical physics we solve the combinatorial problem of non-abelian exponentiation to all orders. In particular, we derive an algorithm for computing the colour factor associated with any given diagram in t…
We present an overview of techniques developed in recent years for the efficient calculation of one-loop multiparton amplitudes, in particular those relying on unitarity and collinear factorization.
Correlators of Wilson-line operators in non-abelian gauge theories are known to exponentiate, and their logarithms can be organised in terms of collections of Feynman diagrams called webs. In [1] we introduced the concept of Cweb, or correlator web, which is a set of skeleton diagrams built with connected gluon correlators, and we computed the mixing matrices for all Cwebs connecting four or five Wilson lines at four loops. Here we complete the evaluation of four-loop mixing matrices, presenting the results for all Cwebs connecting two and three Wilson lines. We observe that the conjuctured co…
The soft function in non-abelian gauge theories exponentiate, and their logarithms can be organised in terms of the collections of Feynman diagrams called Cwebs. The colour factors that appear in the logarithm are controlled by the web mixing matrices. Direct construction of the diagonal blocks of Cwebs using the new concepts of Normal ordering, basis Cweb and Fused-Web was recently carried out in~\cite{Agarwal:2022wyk}. In this article we establish correspondence between the boomerang webs introduced in ~\cite{Gardi:2021gzz} and non-boomerang Cwebs. We use this correspondence together with Un…
The correlators of Wilson-line operators in non-abelian gauge theories are known to exponentiate, and their logarithms can be organised in terms of the collections of Feynman diagrams called Cwebs. The colour factors that appear in the logarithm correspond to completely connected diagrams and are determined by the web mixing matrices. In this article we introduce several new concepts: (a) Normal ordering of the diagrams of a Cweb, (b) Fused-Webs (c) Basis and Family of Cwebs. We use these ideas together with a Uniqueness theorem that we prove to arrive at an understanding of the diagonal block…
We discuss an algorithm for the numerical evaluation of NLO multiparton processes. We focus hereby on the virtual part of the NLO calculation, i.e. on evaluating the one-loop integration numerically. We employ and extend the ideas of the subtraction method to the virtual part and we use subtraction terms for the soft, collinear and ultraviolet regions, which allows us to evaluate the loop integral numerically in four dimensions. A second ingredient is a method to deform the integration contour of the loop integration into the complex plane. The algorithm is derived on the level of the primitiv…
We consider a scalar field, such as the Higgs boson H, coupled to gluons via the effective operator H tr G_{mu nu} G^{mu nu} induced by a heavy-quark loop. We treat H as the real part of a complex field phi which couples to the self-dual part of the gluon field-strength, via the operator phi tr G_{SD mu nu} G_{SD}^{mu nu}, whereas the conjugate field phi^dagger couples to the anti-self-dual part. There are three infinite sequences of amplitudes coupling phi to quarks and gluons that vanish at tree level, and hence are finite at one loop, in the QCD coupling. Using on-shell recursion relations,…
In this talk we discuss an algorithm for the numerical calculation of one-loop QCD amplitudes and present results at next-to-leading order for jet observables in electron-positron annihilation calculated with the above-mentioned method. The algorithm consists of subtraction terms, approximating the soft, collinear and ultraviolet divergences of QCD one-loop amplitudes, as well as a method to deform the integration contour for the loop integration into the complex plane to match Feynman's i delta rule. The algorithm is formulated at the amplitude level and does not rely on Feynman graphs. There…
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,…
Webs are sets of Feynman diagrams which manifest soft gluon exponentiation in gauge theory scattering amplitudes: individual webs contribute to the logarithm of the amplitude and their ultraviolet renormalization encodes its infrared structure. In this paper, we consider the particular class of boomerang webs, consisting of multiple gluon exchanges, but where at least one gluon has both of its endpoints on the same Wilson line. First, we use the replica trick to prove that diagrams involving self-energy insertions along the Wilson line do not contribute to the web, i.e. their exponentiated col…
Webs are weighted sets of Feynman diagrams which build up the logarithms of correlators of Wilson lines, and provide the ingredients for the computation of the soft anomalous dimension. We present a general analysis of multiple gluon exchange webs (MGEWs) in correlators of semi-infinite non-lightlike Wilson lines, as functions of the exponentials of the Minkowski cusp angles, $α_{ij}$, formed between lines $i$ and $j$. We compute a range of webs in this class, connecting up to five Wilson lines through four loops, we give an all-loop result for a special class of diagrams, and we discover a ne…
We consider the singular behaviour of QCD scattering amplitudes in kinematical configurations where two or more momenta of the external partons become collinear. At the tree level, this behaviour is known to be controlled by factorization formulae in which the singular collinear factor is universal (process independent). We show that this strict (process-independent) factorization is not valid at one-loop and higher-loop orders in the case of the collinear limit in space-like regions (e.g., collinear radiation from initial-state partons). We introduce a generalized version of all-order colline…
We compute a class of diagrams contributing to the multi-leg soft anomalous dimension through three loops, by renormalizing a product of semi-infinite non-lightlike Wilson lines in dimensional regularization. Using non-Abelian exponentiation we directly compute contributions to the exponent in terms of webs. We develop a general strategy to compute webs with multiple gluon exchanges between Wilson lines in configuration space, and explore their analytic structure in terms of $α_{ij}$, the exponential of the Minkowski cusp angle formed between the lines $i$ and $j$. We show that beyond the obvi…
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 provide a recursive diagrammatic prescription for the exponentiation of gauge theory amplitudes involving products of Wilson lines and loops. This construction generalizes the concept of webs, originally developed for eikonal form factors and cross sections with two eikonal lines, to general soft functions in QCD and related gauge theories. Our coordinate space arguments apply to arbitrary paths for the lines.
I discuss the state-of-the-art knowledge of long-distance singularities in multi-leg gauge-theory scattering amplitudes and report on an on-going calculation of the three-loop soft anomalous dimension through the renormalization of correlators of semi-infinite Wilson lines. I also discuss the non-Abelian exponentiation theorem that has been recently generalised to multiple Wilson lines and demonstrate its application in computing the soft anomalous dimension. Finally, I present recent results for multiple-gluon-exchange webs and discuss their analytic structure.
We report on further progress in understanding soft singularities of massless gauge theory scattering amplitudes. Recently, a set of equations was derived based on Sudakov factorization, constraining the soft anomalous dimension matrix of multi-leg scattering amplitudes to any loop order, and relating it to the cusp anomalous dimension. The minimal solution to these equations was shown to be a sum over color dipoles. Here we explore potential contributions to the soft anomalous dimension that go beyond the sum-over-dipoles formula. Such contributions are constrained by factorization and invari…
We present the generating function approach to the perturbative exponentiation of correlators of a product of Wilson lines and loops. The exponentiated expression is presented in closed form as an algebraic function of correlators of known operators, which can be seen as a generating function for web diagrams. The expression is naturally split onto two parts: the exponentiation kernel, which accumulates all non-trivial information about web diagrams, and the defect of exponentiation, which reconstructs the matrix exponent and is a function of the exponentiation kernel. The detailed comparison …
We study the structure of soft gluon corrections to multi-leg scattering amplitudes in a non-Abelian gauge theory by analysing the corresponding product of semi-infinite Wilson lines. We prove that diagrams exponentiate such that the colour factors in the exponent are fully connected. This completes the generalisation of the non-Abelian exponentiation theorem, previously proven in the case of a Wilson loop, to the case of multiple Wilson lines in arbitrary representations of the colour group. Our proof is based on the replica trick in conjunction with a new formalism where multiple emissions f…
