Computing the soft anomalous dimension with massless particles using the method of regions

Abstract

It is well known that soft singularities of massless amplitudes are significantly simpler than those of massive ones. However, the computation of the soft anomalous dimension (AD) using Wilson-lines correctors is only straightforward in the massive case, thanks to the multiplicative renormalizability of correlators of non-lightlike Wilson lines. Instead, correlators involving lightlike lines, develop higher-order poles in dimensional regularization due to collinear singularities, on top of their ultraviolet divergences. We nevertheless show, using the method of regions, how correlators involving lightlike lines can be interpreted and used in the computation of the multileg soft AD. As a case study, we compute the two-loop soft AD for two massive and one massless particles. To this end, we start with the correlator of three timelike Wilson lines and apply the method of regions in the limit where one of the lines becomes lightlike. A correlator involving a strictly lightlike line then emerges as the "hard region" in this expansion. Its collinear divergences are removed upon adding the remaining regions, recovering the correct ultraviolet pole corresponding to the sought-after AD. By applying the method of regions, we are able to disentangle between ultraviolet and infrared divergences appearing in the strict limit. We also discover new phenomena, such as hard-virtuality collinear modes whose presence reflects the rescaling symmetry of semi-infinite Wilson lines. Our approach generalizes to any combination of massive and massless particles at higher loop order.