arXiv subjects

Iain W. Stewart

Publications and source records attributed to Iain W. Stewart.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2019

Extracting a Short Distance Top Mass with Light Grooming

We propose a kinematic method based on a factorization formula for precisely measuring the top quark mass $m_t$ in $pp$ collisions using boosted top jets with light soft drop grooming. By using light grooming, which is an order of magnitude less aggressive than typical grooming, we retain a universal description of the top mass scheme and decay effects, while still effectively removing soft contamination from the top jet. We give field theory results for the hadronization corrections for jets induced by a heavy top quark, showing they are described by a universal hadronic parameter that also appears for groomed light quark jets. An important phenomenological application of our results is that one can obtain $m_t$ in a short distance scheme by fitting the hadron level jet mass distributions, predicted by our factorization formula, to data or by Monte-Carlo calibration. The peaked distributions for $pp$ and $e^+e^-$ collisions are similar, up to sensitivity to underlying event which is significantly reduced by soft drop. Since soft drop implies that the $t$ and $\bar t$ jet masses each can be independently measured, the analysis enables the use of lepton+jet samples.

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arXiv2019

Helicity Methods for High Multiplicity Subleading Soft and Collinear Limits

The factorization of multi-leg gauge theory amplitudes in the soft and collinear limits provides strong constraints on the structure of amplitudes, and enables efficient calculations of multi-jet observables at the LHC. There is significant interest in extending this understanding to include subleading powers in the soft and collinear limits. While this has been achieved for low point amplitudes, for higher point functions there is a proliferation of variables and more complicated phase space, making the analysis more challenging. By combining the subleading power expansion of spinor-helicity variables in collinear limits with consistency relations derived from the soft collinear effective theory, we show how to efficiently extract the subleading power leading logarithms of $N$-jet event shape observables directly from known spinor-helicity amplitudes. At subleading power, we observe the presence of power law singularities arising solely from the expansion of the amplitudes, which for hadron collider event shapes lead to the presence of derivatives of parton distributions. The techniques introduced here can be used to efficiently compute the power corrections for $N$-jettiness subtractions for processes involving jets at the LHC.

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arXiv2019

First Subleading Power Resummation for Event Shapes

We derive and analytically solve renormalization group (RG) equations of gauge invariant non-local Wilson line operators which resum logarithms for event shape observables $τ$ at subleading power in the $τ\ll 1$ expansion. These equations involve a class of universal jet and soft functions arising through operator mixing, which we call $θ$-jet and $θ$-soft functions. An illustrative example involving these operators is introduced which captures the generic features of subleading power resummation, allowing us to derive the structure of the RG to all orders in $α_s$, and provide field theory definitions of all ingredients. As a simple application, we use this to obtain an analytic leading logarithmic result for the subleading power resummed thrust spectrum for $H\to gg$ in pure glue QCD. This resummation determines the nature of the double logarithmic series at subleading power, which we find is still governed by the cusp anomalous dimension. We check our result by performing an analytic calculation up to ${\cal O}(α_s^3)$. Consistency of the subleading power RG relates subleading power anomalous dimensions, constrains the form of the $θ$-soft and $θ$-jet functions, and implies an exponentiation of higher order loop corrections in the subleading power collinear limit. Our results provide a path for carrying out systematic resummation at subleading power for collider observables.

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arXiv2019

Precision Photon Spectra for Wino Annihilation

We provide precise predictions for the hard photon spectrum resulting from neutral SU$(2)_W$ triplet (wino) dark matter annihilation. Our calculation is performed utilizing an effective field theory expansion around the endpoint region where the photon energy is near the wino mass. This has direct relevance to line searches at indirect detection experiments. We compute the spectrum at next-to-leading logarithmic (NLL) accuracy within the framework established by a factorization formula derived previously by our collaboration. This allows simultaneous resummation of large Sudakov logarithms (arising from a restricted final state) and Sommerfeld effects. Resummation at NLL accuracy shows good convergence of the perturbative series due to the smallness of the electroweak coupling constant - scale variation yields uncertainties on our NLL prediction at the level of $5\%$. We highlight a number of interesting field theory effects that appear at NLL associated with the presence of electroweak symmetry breaking, which should have more general applicability. We also study the importance of using the full spectrum as compared with a single endpoint bin approximation when computing experimental limits. Our calculation provides a state of the art prediction for the hard photon spectrum that can be easily generalized to other DM candidates, allowing for the robust interpretation of data collected by current and future indirect detection experiments.

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arXiv2019

Resummed Photon Spectra for WIMP Annihilation

We construct an effective field theory (EFT) description of the hard photon spectrum for heavy WIMP annihilation. This facilitates precision predictions relevant for line searches, and allows the incorporation of non-trivial energy resolution effects. Our framework combines techniques from non-relativistic EFTs and soft-collinear effective theory (SCET), as well as its multi-scale extensions that have been recently introduced for studying jet substructure. We find a number of interesting features, including the simultaneous presence of SCET$_{\text{I}}$ and SCET$_{\text{II}}$ modes, as well as collinear-soft modes at the electroweak scale. We derive a factorization formula that enables both the resummation of the leading large Sudakov double logarithms that appear in the perturbative spectrum, and the inclusion of Sommerfeld enhancement effects. Consistency of this factorization is demonstrated to leading logarithmic order through explicit calculation. Our final result contains both the exclusive and the inclusive limits, thereby providing a unifying description of these two previously-considered approximations. We estimate the impact on experimental sensitivity, focusing for concreteness on an SU(2)$_{W}$ triplet fermion dark matter - the pure wino - where the strongest constraints are due to a search for gamma-ray lines from the Galactic Center. We find numerically significant corrections compared to previous results, thereby highlighting the importance of accounting for the photon spectrum when interpreting data from current and future indirect detection experiments.

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arXiv2019

Subleading Power Rapidity Divergences and Power Corrections for $q_T$

A number of important observables exhibit logarithms in their perturbative description that are induced by emissions at widely separated rapidities. These include transverse-momentum ($q_T$) logarithms, logarithms involving heavy-quark or electroweak gauge boson masses, and small-$x$ logarithms. In this paper, we initiate the study of rapidity logarithms, and the associated rapidity divergences, at subleading order in the power expansion. This is accomplished using the soft collinear effective theory (SCET). We discuss the structure of subleading-power rapidity divergences and how to consistently regulate them. We introduce a new pure rapidity regulator and a corresponding $\overline{\rm MS}$-like scheme, which handles rapidity divergences while maintaining the homogeneity of the power expansion. We find that power-law rapidity divergences appear at subleading power, which give rise to derivatives of parton distribution functions. As a concrete example, we consider the $q_T$ spectrum for color-singlet production, for which we compute the complete $q_T^2/Q^2$ suppressed power corrections at $\mathcal{O}(α_s)$, including both logarithmic and nonlogarithmic terms. Our results also represent an important first step towards carrying out a resummation of subleading-power rapidity logarithms.

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arXiv2019

Determining the Nonperturbative Collins-Soper Kernel From Lattice QCD

At small transverse momentum $q_T$, transverse-momentum dependent parton distribution functions (TMDPDFs) arise as genuinely nonperturbative objects that describe Drell-Yan like processes in hadron collisions as well as semi-inclusive deep-inelastic scattering. TMDPDFs naturally depend on the hadron momentum, and the associated evolution is determined by the Collins-Soper equation. For $q_T \sim Λ_\mathrm{QCD}$ the corresponding evolution kernel (or anomalous dimension) is nonperturbative and must be determined as an independent ingredient in order to relate TMDPDFs at different scales. We propose a method to extract this kernel using lattice QCD and the Large-Momentum Effective Theory, where the physical TMD correlation involving light-like paths is approximated by a quasi TMDPDF, defined using equal-time correlation functions with a large-momentum hadron state. The kernel is determined from a ratio of quasi TMDPDFs extracted at different hadron momenta.

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arXiv2018

Power Corrections for N-Jettiness Subtractions at ${\cal O}(α_s)$

We continue the study of power corrections for $N$-jettiness subtractions by analytically computing the complete next-to-leading power corrections at $\cal{O}(α_s)$ for color-singlet production. This includes all nonlogarithmic terms and all partonic channels for Drell-Yan and gluon-fusion Higgs production. These terms are important to further improve the numerical performance of the subtractions, and to better understand the structure of power corrections beyond their leading logarithms, in particular their universality. We emphasize the importance of computing the power corrections differential in both the invariant mass, $Q$, and rapidity, $Y$, of the color-singlet system, which is necessary to account for the rapidity dependence in the subtractions. This also clarifies apparent disagreements in the literature. Performing a detailed numerical study, we find excellent agreement of our analytic results with a previous numerical extraction.

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arXiv2018

Precise QCD Description of the Higgs Boson Transverse Momentum Spectrum

The transverse momentum ($p_T$) distribution of Higgs bosons at hadron colliders enables a detailed probe of its production dynamics and is a key ingredient to precision studies of Higgs boson properties, but receives very large QCD corrections. We obtain a precision prediction for the $p_T$ spectrum by matching second-order (NNLO) QCD corrections at large $p_T$ with resummation of third-order logarithmic (N$^3$LL) corrections at small $p_T$. We achieve significantly improved results for $p_T< 35\,{\rm GeV}$ with perturbative uncertainties $\lesssim \pm 6\%$, and thus a convergent perturbative series for all values of $p_T$.

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arXiv2018

Factorization Theorem Relating Euclidean and Light-Cone Parton Distributions

In a large-momentum nucleon state, the matrix element of a gauge-invariant Euclidean Wilson line operator accessible from lattice QCD can be related to the standard light-cone parton distribution function through the large-momentum effective theory (LaMET) expansion. This relation is given by a factorization theorem with a non-trivial matching coefficient. Using the operator product expansion we prove the large-momentum factorization of the quasi-parton distribution function in LaMET, and show that the more recently discussed Ioffe-time distribution approach also obeys an equivalent factorization theorem. Explicit results for the coefficients are obtained and compared at one-loop. Our proof clearly demonstrates that the matching coefficients in the $\overline{\rm MS}$ scheme depend on the large partonic momentum rather than the nucleon momentum.

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arXiv2018

Hunting for Heavy Winos in the Galactic Center

Observing gamma rays using ground-based atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes provides one of the only probes of heavy weakly interacting dark matter. A canonical target is the thermal wino, for which the strongest limits come from searches for photon lines from annihilations in the Galactic Center. Irreducible finite energy resolution effects motivate refining the prediction for a wino signal beyond the photon line approximation; recently, modern effective field theory techniques have been utilized to obtain a precise calculation of the full photon energy spectrum from wino annihilation. In this paper, we investigate the implications for a realistic mock H.E.S.S.-like line search. We emphasize the impact of including the non-trivial spectral shape, and we carefully treat the region of interest, presenting results for choices between $1^{\circ}$ and $4^{\circ}$ from the Galactic Center. Projected limits for wino masses from $1$-$70$ TeV are interpreted as a constraint on the wino annihilation rate, or alternatively as the minimum core size required such that the wino is not excluded. If there is a thermal wino, H.E.S.S. will be able to probe cores of several kpc, which would begin to cause tension between this dark matter candidate and astrophysical observations/simulations.

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arXiv2018

Manifestly Soft Gauge Invariant Formulation of vNRQCD

Homogeneous power counting in Non-Relativistic QCD (NRQCD) implies the simultaneous existence of both soft and ultrasoft gluons. In the velocity renormalization group (vNRQCD) formalism we show that operators involving soft fields interacting with heavy potential quarks can be put in a manifestly gauge invariant form by utilizing gluon and quark building blocks which contain Wilson lines, and are analogous to those used in the soft collinear effective theory. This leads to several simplifications, in particular significantly reducing the size of the operator basis, which stream-lines matching and anomalous dimension calculations at subleading order in the velocity expansion. Also, soft ghosts no longer couple via potential like interactions to the heavy quark fields, and hence do not appear until two loops. Furthermore the the color structures that appear at each order in $α_s$ in the static potential are only those which should arise according to non-Abelian exponentiation. We also discuss how zero-bin subtractions clarify the role of $i\varepsilon$ terms in the heavy quark propagator poles carrying soft momenta. Even though the choice of the direction of the soft Wilson lines in our building blocks does not matter, there is still a limited set of consistent choices, and the predicted form of the eikonal poles does influence results at two-loops and beyond.

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arXiv2018

The MSR Mass and the ${\cal O}(Λ_{\rm QCD})$ Renormalon Sum Rule

We provide a detailed description and analysis of a low-scale short-distance mass scheme, called the MSR mass, that is useful for high-precision top quark mass determinations, but can be applied for any heavy quark $Q$. In contrast to earlier low-scale short-distance mass schemes, the MSR scheme has a direct connection to the well known $\overline{\rm MS}$ mass commonly used for high-energy applications, and is determined by heavy quark on-shell self-energy Feynman diagrams. Indeed, the MSR mass scheme can be viewed as the simplest extension of the $\overline{\rm MS}$ mass concept to renormalization scales $\ll m_Q$. The MSR mass depends on a scale $R$ that can be chosen freely, and its renormalization group evolution has a linear dependence on $R$, which is known as R-evolution. Using R-evolution for the MSR mass we provide details of the derivation of an analytic expression for the normalization of the ${\cal O}(Λ_{\rm QCD})$ renormalon asymptotic behavior of the pole mass in perturbation theory. This is referred to as the ${\cal O}(Λ_{\rm QCD})$ renormalon sum rule, and can be applied to any perturbative series. The relations of the MSR mass scheme to other low-scale short-distance masses are analyzed as well.

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arXiv2018

Matching the Quasi Parton Distribution in a Momentum Subtraction Scheme

The quasi parton distribution is a spatial correlation of quarks or gluons along the $z$ direction in a moving nucleon which enables direct lattice calculations of parton distribution functions. It can be defined with a nonperturbative renormalization in a regularization independent momentum subtraction scheme (RI/MOM), which can then be perturbatively related to the collinear parton distribution in the $\overline{\text{MS}}$ scheme. Here we carry out a direct matching from the RI/MOM scheme for the quasi-PDF to the $\overline{\text{MS}}$ PDF, determining the non-singlet quark matching coefficient at next-to-leading order in perturbation theory. We find that the RI/MOM matching coefficient is insensitive to the ultraviolet region of convolution integral, exhibits improved perturbative convergence when converting between the quasi-PDF and PDF, and is consistent with a quasi-PDF that vanishes in the unphysical region as the proton momentum $P^z\to \infty$, unlike other schemes. This direct approach therefore has the potential to improve the accuracy for converting quasi-distribution lattice calculations to collinear distributions.

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arXiv2018

Monte Carlo Top Quark Mass Calibration

The most precise top quark mass measurements use kinematic reconstruction methods, determining the top mass parameter of a Monte Carlo event generator, $m_t^{\rm MC}$. Due to the complicated interplay of hadronization and parton shower dynamics in Monte Carlo event generators relevant for kinematic reconstruction, relating $m_t^{\rm MC}$ to field theory masses is a non-trivial task. In this talk we report on a calibration procedure to determine this relation using hadron level QCD predictions for 2-Jettiness in $e^+e^-$ annihilation, an observable which has kinematic top mass sensitivity and a close relation to the invariant mass of the particles coming from the top decay. The theoretical ingredients of the QCD prediction are reviewed. Fitting $e^+e^-$ 2-Jettiness calculations at NLL/NNLL order to PYTHIA 8.205, we find that $m_t^{\rm MC}$ agrees with the MSR mass $m_{t,1\,{\rm GeV}}^{\rm MSR}$ within uncertainties. At NNLL we find $m_t^{\rm MC} = m_{t,1\,{\rm GeV}}^{\rm MSR} + (0.18 \pm 0.22)\,{\rm GeV}$. $m_t^{\rm MC}$ can differ from the pole mass $m_t^{\rm pole}$ by up to $600\,{\rm MeV}$, and using the pole mass generally leads to larger uncertainties. At NNLL we find $m_t^{\rm MC} = m_t^{\rm pole} + (0.57 \pm 0.28)\,{\rm GeV}$ as the fit result. In contrast, converting $m_{t,1\,{\rm GeV}}^{\rm MSR}$ obtained at NNLL to the pole mass gives a result for $m_t^{\rm pole}$ that is substantially larger and incompatible with the fit result. We also explain some theoretical aspects relevant for employing the C-parameter as an alternative calibration observable.

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arXiv2018

A Subleading Power Operator Basis for the Scalar Quark Current

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 $λ\ll 1$ expansion. Here we present a complete basis of power suppressed operators for a scalar quark current at $\mathcal{O}(λ^2)$ 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 $\mathcal{O}(λ^2)$ 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.

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arXiv2017

N-Jettiness Subtractions for $gg\to H$ at Subleading Power

$N$-jettiness subtractions provide a general approach for performing fully-differential next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) calculations. Since they are based on the physical resolution variable $N$-jettiness, $\mathcal{T}_N$, subleading power corrections in $τ=\mathcal{T}_N/Q$, with $Q$ a hard interaction scale, can also be systematically computed. We study the structure of power corrections for $0$-jettiness, $\mathcal{T}_0$, for the $gg\to H$ process. Using the soft-collinear effective theory we analytically compute the leading power corrections $α_s τ\lnτ$ and $α_s^2 τ\ln^3τ$ (finding partial agreement with a previous result in the literature), and perform a detailed numerical study of the power corrections in the $gg$, $gq$, and $q\bar q$ channels. This includes a numerical extraction of the $α_sτ$ and $α_s^2 τ\ln^2τ$ corrections, and a study of the dependence on the $\mathcal{T}_0$ definition. Including such power suppressed logarithms significantly reduces the size of missing power corrections, and hence improves the numerical efficiency of the subtraction method. Having a more detailed understanding of the power corrections for both $q\bar q$ and $gg$ initiated processes also provides insight into their universality, and hence their behavior in more complicated processes where they have not yet been analytically calculated.

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arXiv2017

Soft Functions for Generic Jet Algorithms and Observables at Hadron Colliders

We introduce a method to compute one-loop soft functions for exclusive $N$-jet processes at hadron colliders, allowing for different definitions of the algorithm that determines the jet regions and of the measurements in those regions. In particular, we generalize the $N$-jettiness hemisphere decomposition of [Jouttenus 2011] in a manner that separates the dependence on the jet boundary from the observables measured inside the jet and beam regions. Results are given for several factorizable jet definitions, including anti-$k_T$, XCone, and other geometric partitionings. We calculate explicitly the soft functions for angularity measurements, including jet mass and jet broadening, in $pp \to L + 1$ jet and explore the differences for various jet vetoes and algorithms. This includes a consistent treatment of rapidity divergences when applicable. We also compute analytic results for these soft functions in an expansion for a small jet radius $R$. We find that the small-$R$ results, including corrections up to $\mathcal{O}(R^2)$, accurately capture the full behavior over a large range of $R$.

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