Radiative Corrections to QCD Amplitudes in Quasi-Multi-Regge Kinematics

Radiative corrections to QCD amplitudes in the quasi-multi-Regge kinematics are interesting in particular since the Reggeized form of these amplitudes is used in the derivation of the NLO BFKL. This form is a hypothesis which must be at least carefully checked, if not proved. We calculate the radiative corrections in the one-loop approximation using the s-channel unitarity. Compatibility of the Reggeized form of the amplitudes with the s-channel unitarity requires fulfillment of the set of nonlinear equations for the Reggeon vertices. We show that these equations are satisfied.Comment: 28 pages,3 figure

Photon-Reggeon Interaction Vertices in the Nla

We calculate the effective vertices for the quark-antiquark and the quark-antiquark-gluon production in the virtual photon - Reggeized gluon interaction. The last vertex is considered at the Born level; for the first one the one-loop corrections are obtained. These vertices have a number of applications; in particular, they are necessary for calculation of the virtual photon impact factor in the next-to-leading logarithmic approximation.Comment: 20 pages, references adde

Heavy Pair Production Currents with General Quantum Numbers in Dimensionally Regularized NRQCD

We discuss the form and construction of general color singlet heavy particle-antiparticle pair production currents for arbitrary quantum numbers, and issues related to evanescent spin operators and scheme-dependences in nonrelativistic QCD (NRQCD) in n=3-2epsilon dimensions. The anomalous dimensions of the leading interpolating currents for heavy quark and colored scalar pairs in arbitrary (2S+1)L_J angular-spin states are determined at next-to-leading order in the nonrelativistic power counting.Comment: 39 pages, 2 tables, 10 figures; typos corrected, published versio

Non-forward NLO BFKL Kernel

Details of the calculation of the non-forward BFKL kernel at next-to-leading order (NLO) are offered. Specifically we show the calculation of the two-gluon production contribution. This contribution was the last missing part of the kernel. Together with the NLO gluon Regge trajectory, the NLO contribution of one-gluon production and the contribution of quark-antiquark production which were found before it defines the kernel completely for any colour state in the $t$-channel, in particular the Pomeron kernel presented recently.Comment: 31 page

Jets from Massive Unstable Particles: Top-Mass Determination

We construct jet observables for energetic top quarks that can be used to determine a short distance top quark mass from reconstruction in e+ e- collisions with accuracy better than Lambda_{QCD}. Using a sequence of effective field theories we connect the production energy, mass, and top width scales, Q>> m>> Gamma, for the top jet cross section, and derive a QCD factorization theorem for the top invariant mass spectrum. Our analysis accounts for: alpha_s corrections from the production and mass scales, corrections due to constraints in defining invariant masses, non-perturbative corrections from the cross-talk between the jets, and alpha_s corrections to the Breit-Wigner line-shape. This paper mainly focuses on deriving the factorization theorem for hemisphere invariant mass distributions and other event shapes in e+e- collisions applicable at a future Linear Collider. We show that the invariant mass distribution is not a simple Breit-Wigner involving the top width. Even at leading order it is shifted and broadened by non-perturbative soft QCD effects. We predict that the invariant mass peak position increases linearly with Q/m due to these non-perturbative effects. They are encoded in terms of a universal soft function that also describes soft effects for massless dijet events. In a future paper we compute alpha_s corrections to the jet invariant mass spectrum, including a summation of large logarithms between the scales Q, m and Gamma.Comment: 54 pages, 10 figures, typos corrected, figures update

Rapidity-Separation Dependence and the Large Next-to-Leading Corrections to the BFKL Equation

Recent concerns about the very large next-to-leading logarithmic (NLL) corrections to the BFKL equation are addressed by the introduction of a physical rapidity-separation parameter $\Delta$. At the leading logarithm (LL) this parameter enforces the constraint that successive emitted gluons have a minimum separation in rapidity, $y_{i+1}-y_i>\Delta$. The most significant effect is to reduce the BFKL Pomeron intercept from the standard result as $\Delta$ is increased from 0 (standard BFKL). At NLL this $\Delta$-dependence is compensated by a modification of the BFKL kernel, such that the total dependence on $\Delta$ is formally next-to-next-to-leading logarithmic. In this formulation, as long as $\Delta\gtrsim2.2$ (for $\alpha_{s}=0.15$): (i) the NLL BFKL pomeron intercept is stable with respect to variations of $\Delta$, and (ii) the NLL correction is small compared to the LL result. Implications for the applicability of the BFKL resummation to phenomenology are considered.Comment: 16 pages, 3 figures, Late

Infrared safety of impact factors for colourless particle interactions

We demonstrate, to next-to-leading order accuracy, the cancellation of the infrared singularities in the impact factors which arise in the QCD description of high energy processes A + B -> A' + B' of colourless particles. We study the example where A is a virtual photon in detail, but show that the result is true in general.Comment: 31 pages latex including 10 figure

Discontinuites of BFKL amplitudes and the BDS ansatz

We perform an examination of discontinuities of multiple production amplitudes, which are required for further development of the BFKL approach. It turns out that the discontinuities of 2 $\to$ 2 + n amplitudes obtained in the BFKL approach contradict to the BDS ansatz for amplitudes with maximal helicity violation in N = 4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory with large number of colours starting with n = 2. Explicit expressions for the discontinuities of the 2 $\to$ 3 and 2 $\to$ 4 amplitudes in the invariant mass of pairs of produced gluons are obtained in the planar N=4 SYM in the next-to-leading logarithmic approximation. These expressions can be used for checking the conjectured duality between the light-like Wilson loops and the MHV amplitudes.Comment: 26 page

On Hermitian separability of the next-to-leading order BFKL kernel for the adjoint representation of the gauge group in the planar N = 4 SYM

We analyze a modification of the BFKL kernel for the adjoint representation of the colour group in the maximally supersymmetric (N=4) Yang-Mills theory in the limit of a large number of colours, related to the modification of the eigenvalues of the kernel suggested by S. Bondarenko and A. Prygarin in order to reach the Hermitian separability of the eigenvalues. We restore the modified kernel in the momentum space. It turns out that the modification is related only to the real part of the kernel and that the correction to the kernel can not be presented by a single analytic function in the entire momentum region, which contradicts the known properties of the kernel