The tail effect in gravitational radiation-reaction: time non-locality and renormalization group evolution

We use the effective field theory (EFT) framework to calculate the tail effect in gravitational radiation reaction, which enters at 4PN order in the dynamics of a binary system. The computation entails a subtle interplay between the near (or potential) and far (or radiation) zones. In particular, we find that the tail contribution to the effective action is non-local in time, and features both a dissipative and a `conservative' term. The latter includes a logarithmic ultraviolet (UV) divergence, which we show cancels against an infrared (IR) singularity found in the (conservative) near zone. The origin of this behavior in the long-distance EFT is due to the point-particle limit -shrinking the binary to a point- which transforms a would-be infrared singularity into an ultraviolet divergence. This is a common occurrence in an EFT approach, which furthermore allows us to use renormalization group (RG) techniques to resum the resulting logarithmic contributions. We then derive the RG evolution for the binding potential and total mass/energy, and find agreement with the results obtained imposing the conservation of the (pseudo) stress-energy tensor in the radiation theory. While the calculation of the leading tail contribution to the effective action involves only one diagram, five are needed for the one-point function. This suggests logarithmic corrections may be easier to incorporate in this fashion. We conclude with a few remarks on the nature of these IR/UV singularities, the (lack of) ambiguities recently discussed in the literature, and the completeness of the analytic Post-Newtonian framework.Comment: 24 pages. 3 figures. v2: Extended discussion on the nature of IR/UV singularities. Published versio

Recent Progress in Heavy Quark Physics

Some of the recent progress in heavy quark physics is reviewed. Special attention is paid to inclusive methods for determining Vub and factorization in nonleptonic B decays. Theoretical predictions for top-antitop production near threshold are also discussed.Comment: talk given at 2001 Lepton Photon Meeting, 10 pages, 5 figure

On the Resummed Hadronic Spectra of Inclusive B Decays

In this paper we investigate the hadronic mass spectra of inclusive B decays. Specifically, we study how an upper cut on the invariant mass spectrum, which is necessary to extract V_{ub}, results in the breakdown of the standard perturbative expansion due to the existence of large infrared logs. We first show how the decay rate factorizes at the level of the double differential distribution. Then, we present closed form expressions for the resummed cut rate for the inclusive decays B -> X_s gamma and B -> X_u e nu at next-to-leading order in the infrared logs. Using these results, we determine the range of cuts for which resummation is necessary, as well as the range for which the resummed expansion itself breaks down. We also use our results to extract the leading and next to leading infrared log contribution to the two loop differential rate. We find that for the phenomenologically interesting cut values, there is only a small region where the calculation is under control. Furthermore, the size of this region is sensitive to the parameter \bar{\Lambda}. We discuss the viability of extracting V_{ub} from the hadronic mass spectrum.Comment: 18 pages, 5 figures, minor change

Exclusive Radiative Decays of Upsilon in SCET

We study exclusive radiative decays of the $\Upsilon$ using soft-collinear effective theory and non-relativistic QCD. In contrast to inclusive radiative decays at the endpoint we find that color-octet contributions are power suppressed in exclusive decays, and can safely be neglected, greatly simplifying the analysis. We determine the complete set of Lorentz structures that can appear in the SCET Wilson coefficients and match onto them using results from a previous calculation. We run these coefficients from the scale \mups to the scale $\Lambda \sim 1 \textrm{GeV}$, thereby summing large logarithms. Finally we use our results to predict the ratio of branching fractions $B(\Upsilon \to \gamma f_2)/B(J/\psi \to \gamma f_2)$, $B(J/\psi \to \gamma f_2)/B(\psi' \to \gamma f_2)$, and the partial rate for $\Upsilon \to \gamma \pi \pi$.Comment: 17 pages, 2 figures. Updated to reflect published versio

Radiation Reaction for Non-Spinning Bodies at 4.5PN in the Effective Field Theory Approach

We calculate the 2 post-Newtonian correction to the radiation reaction acceleration for non-spinning binary systems, which amounts to the 4.5 post-Newtonian correction to Newtonian acceleration. The calculation is carried out completely using the effective field theory approach. The center-of-mass corrections to the results are complicated and are discussed in detail. Non-trivial consistency checks are performed and we compare with corresponding results in the literature. Analytic results are supplied in the supplementary materials.Comment: 23 pages. 1 ancillary file (wl format

Resummation Effects in Vector-Boson and Higgs Associated Production

Fixed-order QCD radiative corrections to the vector-boson and Higgs associated production channels, pp -> VH (V=W, Z), at hadron colliders are well understood. We combine higher order perturbative QCD calculations with soft-gluon resummation of both threshold logarithms and logarithms which are important at low transverse momentum of the VH pair. We study the effects of both types of logarithms on the scale dependence of the total cross section and on various kinematic distributions. The next-to-next-to-next-to-leading logarithmic (NNNLL) resummed total cross sections at the LHC are almost identical to the fixed-order perturbative next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) rates, indicating the excellent convergence of the perturbative QCD series. Resummation of the VH transverse momentum (p_T) spectrum provides reliable results for small values of p_T and suggests that implementing a jet-veto will significantly decrease the cross sections.Comment: 25 pages, references update

Flavor-singlet light-cone amplitudes and radiative Upsilon decays in SCET

We study the evolution of flavor-singlet, light-cone amplitudes in the soft-collinear effective theory (SCET), and reproduce results previously obtained by a different approach. We apply our calculation to the color-singlet contribution to the photon endpoint in radiative Upsilon decay. In a previous paper, we studied the color-singlet contributions to the endpoint, but neglected operator mixing, arguing that it should be a numerically small effect. Nevertheless the mixing needs to be included in a consistent calculation, and we do just that in this work. We find that the effects of mixing are indeed numerically small. This result combined with previous work on the color-octet contribution and the photon fragmentation contribution provides a consistent theoretical treatment of the photon spectrum in radiative Upsilon decay.Comment: 19 pages with 8 figure

Bounds on the derivatives of the Isgur-Wise function from sum rules in the heavy quark limit of QCD

Using the OPE and the trace formalism, we have obtained a number of sum rules in the heavy quark limit of QCD that include the sum over all excited states for any value $j^P$ of the light cloud. We show that these sum rules imply that the elastic Isgur-Wise function $\xi (w)$ is an alternate series in powers of $(w-1)$. Moreover, we obtain sum rules involving the derivatives of the elastic Isgur-Wise function $\xi (w)$ at zero recoil, that imply that the $n$-th derivative can be bounded by the $(n-1)$-th one. For the curvature $\sigma^2 = \xi''(1)$, this proves the already proposed bound $\sigma^2 \geq {5 \over 4} \rho^2$. Moreover, we obtain the absolute bound for the $n$-th derivative $(-1)^n \xi^{(n)}(1) \geq {(2n+1)!! \over 2^{2n}}$, that generalizes the results $\rho^2 \geq {3 \over 4}$ and $\sigma^2 \geq {15 \over 16}$.Comment: 9 pages, Late

Radiation reaction for spinning bodies in effective field theory. II. Spin-spin effects

We compute the leading post-Newtonian (PN) contributions at quadratic order in the spins to the radiation-reaction acceleration and spin evolution for binary systems, entering at four-and-a-half PN order. Our calculation includes the backreaction from finite-size spin effects, which is presented for the first time. The computation is carried out, from first principles, using the effective field theory framework for spinning extended objects. At this order, nonconservative effects in the spin-spin sector are independent of the spin supplementary conditions. A nontrivial consistency check is performed by showing that the energy loss induced by the resulting radiation-reaction force is equivalent to the total emitted power in the far zone. We find that, in contrast to the spin-orbit contributions (reported in a companion paper), the radiation reaction affects the evolution of the spin vectors once spin-spin effects are incorporated