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George Sterman

Publications and source records attributed to George Sterman.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources
arXiv2020

Locally finite two-loop amplitudes for off-shell multi-photon production in electron-positron annihilation

We study the singularity structure of two-loop QED amplitudes for the production of multiple off-shell photons in massless electron-positron annihilation and develop counterterms that remove their infrared and ultraviolet divergences point by point in the loop integrand. The remainders of the subtraction are integrable in four dimensions and can be computed in the future with numerical integration. The counterterms capture the divergences of the amplitudes and factorize in terms of the Born amplitude and the finite remainder of the one-loop amplitude. They consist of simple one- and two-loop integrals with at most three external momenta and can be integrated analytically in a simple manner with established methods. We uncover novel aspects of fully local IR factorization, where vertex and self-energy subdiagrams must be modified by new symmetrizations over loop momenta, in order to expose their tree-like tensor structures and hence factorization of IR singularities prior to loop integration. This work is a first step towards isolating locally the hard contributions of generic gauge theory amplitudes and rendering them integrable in exactly four dimensions with numerical methods.

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arXiv2020

Power expansion for heavy quarkonium production at next-to-leading order in $\rm e^+e^-$ annihilation

We study heavy quarkonium production associated with gluons in $\rm e^+e^-$ annihilation as an illustration of the perturbative QCD (pQCD) factorization approach, which incorporates the first nonleading power in the energy of the produced heavy quark pair. We show how the renormalization of the four-quark operators that define the heavy quark pair fragmentation functions using dimensional regularization induces "evanescent" operators that are absent in four dimensions. We derive closed forms for short-distance coefficients for quark pair production to next-to-leading order ($α_s^2$) in the relevant color singlet and octet channels. Using non-relativistic QCD (NRQCD) to calculate the heavy quark pair fragmentation functions up to $v^4$ in the velocity expansion, we derive analytical results for the differential energy fraction distribution of the heavy quarkonium. Calculations for ${}^3S_1^{[1]}$ and ${}^1S_0^{[8]}$ channels agree with analogous NRQCD analytical results available in the literature, while several color-octet calculations of energy fraction distributions are new. We show that the remaining corrections due to the heavy quark mass fall off rapidly in the energy of the produced state. To explore the importance of evolution at energies much larger than the mass of the heavy quark, we solve the renormalization group equation perturbatively to two-loop order for the ${}^3S_1^{[1]}$ case.

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arXiv2019

Threshold Resummation at NNLL for Single-particle Production in Hadronic Collisions

We develop threshold resummation for single-particle inclusive cross sections in hadron-hadron collisions to the level of next-to-next-to-leading logarithm, up to full matching with two-loop hard functions. We define and calculate all one-loop soft functions for all partonic channels. This enables us to separate the hard and soft functions at one loop. Along with these results, the one-loop finite parts of jet functions are used to check that the full soft, collinear and virtual corrections are reproduced to one loop for all partonic reactions. We exhibit these NLO results explicitly. NLO expansions of the resummed cross section match the exact NLO results extremely well numerically, and two loop expansions result in substantial corrections over many kinematic configurations. Explicit results are given in Mellin moment space, and a number of options for generating resummed cross sections are discussed.

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arXiv2018

Removing infrared divergences from two-loop integrals

Feynman amplitudes at higher orders in perturbation theory generically have complex singular structures. Notwithstanding the emergence of many powerful new methods, the presence of infrared divergences poses significant challenges for their evaluation. In this article, we develop a systematic method for the removal of the infrared singularities, by adding appropriate counterterms that approximate and cancel divergent limits point-by-point at the level of the integrand. We provide a proof of concept for our method by applying it to master-integrals that are found in scattering amplitudes for representative two-to-two scattering processes of massless particles. We demonstrate that, after the introduction of counterterms, the remainder is finite in four dimensions. In addition, we find in these cases that the complete singular dependence of the integrals can be obtained simply by analytically integrating the counterterms. Finally, we observe that our subtraction method can be also useful in order to extract in a simple way the asymptotic behavior of Feynman amplitudes in the limit of small mass parameters.

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arXiv2017

Path description of coordinate-space amplitudes

We develop a coordinate version of light-cone-ordered perturbation theory, for general time-ordered products of fields, by carrying out integrals over one light-cone coordinate for each interaction vertex. The resulting expressions depend on the lengths of paths, measured in the same light-cone coordinate. Each path is associated with a denominator equal to a "light-cone deficit", analogous to the "energy deficits" of momentum-space time- or light-cone-ordered perturbation theory. In effect, the role played by intermediate states in momentum space is played by paths between external fields in coordinate space. We derive a class of identities satisfied by coordinate diagrams, from which their imaginary parts can be derived. Using scalar QED as an example, we show how the eikonal approximation arises naturally when the external points in a Green function approach the light cone, and we give applications to products of Wilson lines. Although much of our discussion is directed at massless fields in four dimensions, we extend the formalism to massive fields and dimensional regularization.

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arXiv2016

Yang-Mills Theories at High-Energy Accelerators

I'll begin with a brief review of the triumph of Yang-Mills theory at particle accelerators, a development that began some years after their historic paper. This story reached a culmination, or at least local extremum, with the discovery at the Large Hadron Collider of a Higgs-like scalar boson in 2012. The talk then proceeds to a slightly more technical level, discussing how we derive predictions from the gauge field theories of the Standard Model and its extensions for use at high energy accelerators.

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arXiv2016

A coordinate description of partonic processes

We review a perturbative description of amplitudes in coordinate space, aiming at an intuitive perspective on the roles of "long" and "short" distances. We begin with coordinate-space leading regions for fixed-angle scattering amplitudes, and develop approximations and factorizations in analogy to similar procedures in momentum space. There are also applications to products of Wilson lines, including the familiar cusp amplitude. We briefly discuss cross sections from the coordinate viewpoint, and the mechanism by which infrared singularities cancel in inclusive cross sections.

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arXiv2015

QCD factorization for high $p_T$ heavy quarkonium production

In this talk, we present the QCD factorization formula for heavy quarkonium production at large $p_T$ with factorized leading-power and next-to-leading power contributions in the $1/p_T$ expansion. We show that the leading order analytical calculations in this QCD factorization approach can reproduce effectively the full next-to-leading order numerical results derived using non-relativistic QCD (NRQCD) factorization formalism. We demonstrate that the next-to-leading power contributions are crucial to the description of the channels that are the most relevant for the rate as well as polarization of $J/ψ$ production at current collider energies.

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arXiv2015

Ultraviolet divergences and factorization for coordinate-space amplitudes

We consider the coordinate-space matrix elements that correspond to fixed-angle scattering amplitudes involving partons and Wilson lines in coordinate space, working in Feynman gauge. In coordinate space, both collinear and short-distance limits produce ultraviolet divergences. We classify singularities in coordinate space, and identify neighborhoods associated unambiguously with individual subspaces (pinch surfaces) where the integrals are singular. The set of such regions is finite for any diagram. Within each of these regions, coordinate-space soft-collinear and hard-collinear approximations reproduce singular behavior. Based on this classification of regions and approximations, we develop a series of nested subtraction approximations by analogy to the formalism in momentum space. This enables us to rewrite each amplitude as a sum of terms to which gauge theory Ward identities can be applied, factorizing them into hard, jet and soft factors, and to confirm the multiplicative renormalizability of products of lightlike Wilson lines. We study in some detail the simplest case, the color-singlet cusp linking two Wilson lines, and show that the logarithm of this amplitude, which is a sum of diagrams known as webs, is closely related to the corresponding subtracted amplitude order by order in perturbation theory. This enables us to confirm that the logarithm of the cusp can be written as the integral of an ultraviolet-finite function over a surface. We study to what extent this result generalizes to amplitudes involving multiple Wilson lines.

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arXiv2015

Gauge theory webs and surfaces

We analyze the perturbative cusp and closed polygons of Wilson lines for massless gauge theories in coordinate space, and express them as exponentials of two-dimensional integrals. These integrals have geometric interpretations, which link renormalization scales with invariant distances.

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arXiv2014

Heavy Quarkonium Production at Collider Energies: Factorization and Evolution

We present a factorization formalism for inclusive production of heavy quarkonia of large transverse momentum, $p_T$ at collider energies, including both leading power (LP) and next-to-leading power (NLP) behavior in $p_T$. We demonstrate that both LP and NLP contributions can be factorized in terms of perturbatively calculable short-distance partonic coefficient functions and universal non-perturbative fragmentation functions, and derive the evolution equations that are implied by the factorization. We identify projection operators for all channels of the factorized LP and NLP infrared safe short-distance partonic hard parts, and corresponding operator definitions of fragmentation functions. For the NLP, we focus on the contributions involving the production of a heavy quark pair, a necessary condition for producing a heavy quarkonium. We evaluate the first non-trivial order of evolution kernels for all relevant fragmentation functions, and discuss the role of NLP contributions.

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arXiv2014

Heavy Quarkonium Production at Collider Energies: Partonic Cross Section and Polarization

We calculate the ${\cal O}(α_s^3)$ short-distance, QCD collinear-factorized coefficient functions for all partonic channels that include the production of a heavy quark pair at short distances. This provides the first power correction to the collinear-factorized inclusive hadronic production of heavy quarkonia at large transverse momentum, $p_T$, including the full leading-order perturbative contributions to the production of heavy quark pairs in all color and spin states employed in NRQCD treatments of this process. We discuss the role of the first power correction in the production rates and the polarizations of heavy quarkonia in high energy hadronic collisions. The consistency of QCD collinear factorization and non-relativistic QCD factorization applied to heavy quarkonium production is also discussed.

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arXiv2014

Factorized power expansion for high-$p_T$ heavy quarkonium production

We show that when the factorized cross section for heavy quarkonium production includes next-to-leading power (NLP) contributions associated with the production of the heavy quark pair at short distances, it naturally reproduces all high $p_T$ results calculated in non-relativistic QCD (NRQCD) factorization. This extended formalism requires fragmentation functions for heavy quark pairs, as well as for light partons. When these fragmentation functions are themselves calculated using NRQCD, we find that two of the four leading NRQCD production channels, ${^3\hspace{-0.6mm}S_{1}^{[1]}}$ and ${^1\hspace{-0.6mm}S_{0}^{[8]}}$, are dominated by the NLP contributions for a very wide $p_T$ range. The large next-to-leading order corrections of NRQCD are absorbed into the leading order of the first power correction. The impact of this finding on the heavy quarkonium production and its polarization is discussed.

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arXiv2014

Quantifying Comparisons of Threshold Resummations

We explore similarities and differences between widely-used threshold resummation formalisms, employing electroweak boson production as an instructive example. Resummations based on both full QCD and soft-collinear effective theory (SCET) share common underlying factorizations and resulting evolution equations. The formalisms differ primarily in their choices of boundary conditions for evolution, in moment space for many treatments based on full QCD, and in momentum space for treatments based on soft-collinear effective theory. At the level of factorized hadronic cross sections, these choices lead to quite different expressions. Nevertheless, we can identify a natural expansion for parton luminosity functions, in which SCET and full QCD resummations agree for the first term, and for which subsequent terms provide differences that are small in most cases. We also clarify the roles of the non-leading resummation constants in the two formalisms, and observe a relationship of the QCD resummation function $D(α_s)$ to the web expansion.

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arXiv2014

Comparing and Counting Logs in Direct and Effective Methods of Resummation

We compare methods to resum logarithms in event shape distributions as they have been used in perturbative QCD directly and in effective field theory. We demonstrate that they are equivalent. In showing this equivalence, we are able to put standard soft-collinear effective theory (SCET) formulae for cross sections in momentum space into a novel form more directly comparable with standard QCD formulae, and endow the QCD formulae with dependence on separated hard, jet, and soft scales, providing potential ways to improve estimates of theoretical uncertainty. We show how to compute cross sections in momentum space to keep them as accurate as the corresponding expressions in Laplace space. In particular, we point out that that care is required in truncating differential distributions at N$^k$LL accuracy to ensure they match the accuracy of the corresponding cumulant or Laplace transform. We explain how to avoid such mismatches at N$^k$LL accuracy, and observe why they can also be avoided by working to N$^k$LL$'$ accuracy.

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arXiv2013

Perturbation theory in (2,2) signature

We identify a natural analytic continuation in four dimensions from Minkowski signature to a signature with two time-like momentum components. For two, three and four-point diagrams at fixed external momenta, this continuation can be implemented as a countour deformation that leaves dependence on the momenta unchanged. For arbitrary ultraviolet-finite scalar diagrams it is possible to do two integrals per loop in terms of simple poles in the new signature. This results in a representation of any such diagram as a sum of terms, each with two remaining integrals per loop.

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arXiv2012

Final state interactions in single- and multi-particle inclusive cross sections for hadronic collisions

We study the role of low momentum transfer (soft) interactions between high-transverse momentum heavy particles and beam remnants (spectators) in hadronic collisions. Such final-state interactions are power suppressed for single-particle inclusive cross sections whenever that particle is accompanied by a recoiling high-p_T partner whose momentum is not fixed. An example is the single-top inclusive cross section in top pair production. Final-state soft interactions in multi-particle inclusive cross sections, including transverse momentum distributions, however, produce leading power corrections in the absence of hard recoiling radiation. Nonperturbative corrections due to scattering from spectators are generically suppressed by powers of Λ/p'_T, where Λis a hadronic scale, and p'_T is the largest transverse momentum of radiation recoiling against the particles whose momenta are observed.

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