No Arabic abstract
We study the transverse spin structure of the squeezed limit of the three-point energy correlator, $langle mathcal{E}(vec n_1) mathcal{E}(vec n_2) mathcal{E}(vec n_3) rangle$. To describe its all orders perturbative behavior, we develop the light-ray operator product expansion (OPE) in QCD. At leading twist the iterated OPE of $mathcal{E}(vec n_i)$ operators closes onto light-ray operators $mathbb{O}^{[J]}(vec n)$ with spin $J$, and transverse spin $j=0,2$. We compute the $mathcal{E}(vec n_1) mathcal{E}(vec n_2)$, $mathcal{E}(vec n_1) mathbb{O}^{[J]}(vec n_2) $ and $mathbb{O}^{[J_1]}(vec n_1) mathbb{O}^{[J_2]}(vec n_2) $ OPEs as analytic functions of $J$, which allows for the description of arbitrary squeezed limits of $N$-point correlators in QCD. We use these results with $J=3$ to reproduce the perturbative expansion in the squeezed limit of the three-point correlator, as well as to resum the leading twist singular structure for both quark and gluon jets, including transverse spin contributions, as required for phenomenological applications. Finally, we briefly comment on the transverse spin structure at higher twists, and show that to all orders in the twist expansion the highest transverse spin contributions are universal between quark and gluon jets, and are descendants of the leading twist transverse spin-2 operator, allowing their resummation into a simple two-dimensional Euclidean conformal block. Due to the general applicability of our results to arbitrary correlation functions of energy flow operators, we anticipate that they can be widely applied to improving our understanding of jet substructure at the LHC.
Collimated sprays of hadrons, called jets, are an emergent phenomenon of Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) at collider experiments, whose detailed internal structure encodes valuable information about the interactions of high energy quarks and gluons, and their confinement into color-neutral hadrons. The flow of energy within jets is characterized by correlation functions of energy flow operators, with the three-point correlator, being the first correlator with non-trivial shape dependence, playing a special role in unravelling the dynamics of QCD. In this Letter we initiate a study of the three-point energy correlator to all orders in the strong coupling constant, in the limit where two of the detectors are squeezed together. We show that by rotating the two squeezed detectors with respect to the third by an angle $phi$, a $cos (2phi)$ dependence arising from the quantum interference between intermediate virtual gluons with $+/-$ helicity is imprinted on the detector. This can be regarded as a double slit experiment performed with jet substructure, and it provides a direct probe of the ultimately quantum nature of the substructure of jets, and of transverse spin physics in QCD. To facilitate our all-orders analysis, we adopt the Operator Product Expansion (OPE) for light-ray operators in conformal field theory and develop it in QCD. Our application of the light-ray OPE in real world QCD establishes it as a powerful theoretical tool with broad applications for the study of jet substructure.
We derive a nonperturbative, convergent operator product expansion (OPE) for null-integrated operators on the same null plane in a CFT. The objects appearing in the expansion are light-ray operators, whose matrix elements can be computed by the generalized Lorentzian inversion formula. For example, a product of average null energy (ANEC) operators has an expansion in the light-ray operators that appear in the stress-tensor OPE. An important application is to collider event shapes. The light-ray OPE gives a nonperturbative expansion for event shapes in special functions that we call celestial blocks. As an example, we apply the celestial block expansion to energy-energy correlators in N=4 Super Yang-Mills theory. Using known OPE data, we find perfect agreement with previous results both at weak and strong coupling, and make new predictions at weak coupling through 4 loops (NNNLO).
We summarize recently improved results for the pseudoscalar [1,2] and vector [3] meson decay constants and their ratios from QCD spectral sum rules where N2LO + estimate of the N3LO PT and power corrections up to d< 6 dimensions have been included in the SVZ expansion. The optimal results based on stability criteria with respect to the variations of the Laplace/Moments sum rule variables, QCD continuum threshold and subtraction constant mu are compared with recent sum rules and lattice calculations. To understand the apparent tension between some recent results for f_B*/f_B, we present in Section 8 a novel extraction of this ratio from heavy quark effective theory (HQET) sum rules by including the normalization factor (M_b/M_B)^2 relating the pseudoscalar to the universal HQET correlators for finite b-quark and B-meson masses. We obtain f_B*/f_B=1.025(16) in good agreement with the one 1.016(16) from (pseudo)scalar sum rules in full QCD [3]. We complete the paper by including new improved estimates of the scalar, axial-vector and B^*_c meson decays constants (Sections 11-13). For further phenomenological uses, we attempt to extract a Global Average of different sum rules and lattice determinations of the decay constants which are summarized in Tables 2-6. We do not found any deviation of these SM results from the present data.
We present a novel data-driven method for determining the hadronic interaction strengths of axion-like particles (ALPs) with QCD-scale masses. Using our method, it is possible to calculate the hadronic production and decay rates of ALPs, along with many of the largest ALP decay rate to exclusive final states. To illustrate the impact on QCD-scale ALP phenomenology, we consider the scenario where the ALP-gluon coupling is dominant over the ALP coupling to photons, electroweak bosons, and all fermions for $m_{pi} lesssim m_a lesssim 3$ GeV. We emphasize, however, that our method can easily be generalized to any set of ALP couplings to SM particles. Finally, using the approach developed here, we provide calculations for the branching fractions of $eta_c to VV$ decays, i.e. $eta_c$ decays into two vector mesons, which are consistent with the known experimental values.
We study a product of null-integrated local operators $mathcal{O}_1$ and $mathcal{O}_2$ on the same null plane in a CFT. Such null-integrated operators transform like primaries in a fictitious $d-2$ dimensional CFT in the directions transverse to the null integrals. We give a complete description of the OPE in these transverse directions. The terms with low transverse spin are light-ray operators with spin $J_1+J_2-1$. The terms with higher transverse spin are primary descendants of light-ray operators with higher spins $J_1+J_2-1+n$, constructed using special conformally-invariant differential operators that appear precisely in the kinematics of the light-ray OPE. As an example, the OPE between average null energy operators contains light-ray operators with spin $3$ (as described by Hofman and Maldacena), but also novel terms with spin $5,7,9,$ etc.. These new terms are important for describing energy two-point correlators in non-rotationally-symmetric states, and for computing multi-point energy correlators. We check our formulas in a non-rotationally-symmetric energy correlator in $mathcal{N}=4$ SYM, finding perfect agreement.