Revisiting Single Inclusive Jet Production: Small-$R$ Resummation at Next-to-Leading Logarithm

Abstract

The precision description of jet production plays an important role in many aspects of collider physics. In a recent paper we have presented a new factorization theorem for inclusive small radius jet production. The jet function appearing in our factorization theorem exhibits a non-standard renormalization group evolution, which, starting at next-to-leading logarithm (NLL), differs from previous results in the literature. In this paper we perform a first phenomenological study using our newly developed formalism, applying it to compute the spectrum of small radius jets in $e^+e^-\to J+X$ at NLL. We compare our results with previous predictions, highlighting the numerical impact of previously neglected terms throughout phase space. Our approach can be used for a variety of different collider systems, in particular, $ep$ and $pp$ collisions, with broad applications to the jet substructure program. Most importantly, since our factorization theorem is valid to all orders, the approach developed here will enable NNLL resummation of small radius logarithms in inclusive jet production, extending the precision of jet substructure calculations.