English

The Non-Abelian Exponentiation theorem for multiple Wilson lines

High Energy Physics - Phenomenology 2015-10-23 v3 High Energy Physics - Theory

Abstract

We study the structure of soft gluon corrections to multi-leg scattering amplitudes in a non-Abelian gauge theory by analysing the corresponding product of semi-infinite Wilson lines. We prove that diagrams exponentiate such that the colour factors in the exponent are fully connected. This completes the generalisation of the non-Abelian exponentiation theorem, previously proven in the case of a Wilson loop, to the case of multiple Wilson lines in arbitrary representations of the colour group. Our proof is based on the replica trick in conjunction with a new formalism where multiple emissions from a Wilson line are described by effective vertices, each having a connected colour factor. The exponent consists of connected graphs made out of these vertices. We show that this readily provides a general colour basis for webs. We further discuss the kinematic combinations that accompany each connected colour factor, and explicitly catalogue all three-loop examples, as necessary for a direct computation of the soft anomalous dimension at this order.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1304.7040,
  title  = {The Non-Abelian Exponentiation theorem for multiple Wilson lines},
  author = {Einan Gardi and Jennifer M. Smillie and Chris D. White},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1304.7040},
  year   = {2015}
}

Comments

v2 - typos corrected, references added, to appear in JHEP; 57 pages, 21 figures. v3 - correction in Table 2 and Appendix A.2.5; updates references; 57 pages, 21 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-22T00:06:39.863Z