A non-local OPE for hard QCD processes near the elastic limit

A leading twist expansion in terms of bilocal operators is proposed for the structure functions of deeply inelastic scattering near the elastic limit $x \to 1$, which is also applicable to a range of other hard quasi-elastic processes. Operators of increasing dimensions contribute to logarithmically enhanced terms, which are suppressed by corresponding powers of $1-x$. For the longitudinal structure function in moment $(N)$ space all the logarithmic contributions of order $\ln^k N/N$ are shown to be resummable in terms of the anomalous dimension of the leading operator in the expansion.