A Subleading Power Operator Basis for the Scalar Quark Current

Abstract

Factorization theorems play a crucial role in our understanding of the strong interaction. For collider processes they are typically formulated at leading power and much less is known about power corrections in the $\lambda\ll 1$ expansion. Here we present a complete basis of power suppressed operators for a scalar quark current at $\mathcal{O}(\lambda^2)$ in the amplitude level power expansion in the Soft Collinear Effective Theory, demonstrating that helicity selection rules significantly simplify the construction. This basis applies for the production of any color singlet scalar in $q\bar{q}$ annihilation (such as $b \bar b \to H$). We also classify all operators which contribute to the cross section at $\mathcal{O}(\lambda^2)$ and perform matching calculations to determine their tree level Wilson coefficients. These results can be exploited to study power corrections in both resummed and fixed order perturbation theory, and for analyzing the factorization properties of gauge theory amplitudes and cross sections at subleading power.