DOI: 10.1007/jhep06(2026)199 ISSN: 1029-8479

A perturbative framework to probe infrared sensitivity in non-Abelian gauge theories

Duarte Fontes, Dennis Horstmann, Kirill Melnikov, Davide Maria Tagliabue
Show PDF Cite

A
bstract

Understanding the infrared sensitivity of perturbative predictions in QCD is important for assessing the magnitude of possible non-perturbative power corrections to processes with large momentum transfer. In renormalon models, this sensitivity can be related to computable dependences of perturbative quantities on a small gluon mass. However, this procedure cannot be applied to collider processes with gluons at the Born level. To address this problem, we promote the gluon mass to a parameter of a consistent non-Abelian quantum field theory where the gauge symmetry is spontaneously broken through the Higgs mechanism. Working in the limit in which the gluon mass m g is the smallest dimensionful parameter, we compute through two loops the

$$ \mathcal{O}\left({m}_{\mathrm{g}}\right) $$ O m g
contributions to the relation between the pole and
$$ \overline{\mathrm{MS}} $$ MS ¯
masses of a heavy quark and to the relation between corresponding field counterterms. We expect that the proposed framework will provide a useful laboratory for probing linear infrared sensitivity of collider observables in QCD.

More from our Archive