Muon-electron backward scattering: a prime example for endpoint singularities in SCET

Abstract

We argue that energetic muon-electron scattering in the backward direction can be viewed as a template case to study the resummation of large logarithms related to endpoint divergences appearing in the effective-theory formulation of hard-exclusive processes. While it is known since the mid sixties that the leading double logarithms from QED corrections resum to a modified Bessel function on the amplitude level, the modern formulation in Soft-Collinear Effective Theory (SCET) shows a surprisingly complicated and iterative pattern of endpoint-divergent convolution integrals. In contrast to the bottom-quark induced $h \to \gamma\gamma$ decay, for which a renormalized factorization theorem has been proposed recently, we find that rapidity logarithms generate an infinite tower of collinear-anomaly exponents. This can be understood as a generic consequence of the underlying $2\to 2$ kinematics. Using endpoint refactorization conditions for the collinear matrix elements, we show how the Bessel function is reproduced in the effective theory from consistency relations between quantities in a "bare" factorization theorem.