Azimuthally-correlated contributions to QCD transverse-momentum resummation at $\mathcal{O}(\alpha_{\rm S}^2)$

TL;DR

This paper develops a process-independent framework for calculating transverse-momentum dependent observables in QCD, introducing collinear functions that avoid rapidity divergences and are computed up to two loops.

Contribution

It introduces a novel, process-independent approach to define collinear functions for transverse-momentum observables, avoiding rapidity divergences and computed up to NNLO.

Findings

Explicit NNLO computations of collinear functions.

Process-independent formulation of transverse-momentum resummation.

Avoidance of rapidity divergences in the definitions.

Abstract

Singular factors originating from the QCD factorisation of scattering amplitudes in soft and collinear limits play a prominent role in both organising and computing high-order perturbative contributions to hard-scattering cross sections. In this talk, we start from the factorisation structure of scattering amplitudes in the collinear limit, and we introduce collinear functions that have a process-independent structure. These collinear functions, which are defined at the fully-differential level, can then be integrated over the appropriate observable-dependent phase space to compute logarithmically-enhanced contributions to the corresponding observable. For transverse-momentum dependent observables, we show how the collinear functions can be defined without introducing what is known as rapidity divergences in the literature. We present the results of explicit computations of the collinear functions up to next-to-next-to-leading order in the QCD perturbation theory.