English

Light-like Wilson loops and the $\bar{Q}$-equation

High Energy Physics - Theory 2026-02-02 v1

Abstract

In recent work we began a study of the correlators of multiple light-like Wilson loops in N=4\mathcal{N}=4 super Yang-Mills theory, focussing primarily on tree-level calculations and, beyond tree-level, to the Abelian theory. Here we calculate O(g2)O(g^2) correlators of multiple light-like Wilson loops in the SU(N)SU(N) theory. We use the chiral box expansion and a study of the leading singularities of the loop integrand to arrive at integrated expressions for these objects. We then use the results of these calculations to verify that a natural generalisation of the Qˉ\bar{Q}-equation, familiar from the study of single Wilson loops, holds in the SU(N)SU(N) theory. This Qˉ\bar{Q}-equation should provide a valuable tool for the computation of multiple Wilson loop correlators at higher order in the coupling.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2601.23210,
  title  = {Light-like Wilson loops and the $\bar{Q}$-equation},
  author = {James Drummond and Matthew Rochford and Rowan Wright},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2601.23210},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

47 pages, 3 figures