Conformal symmetry assisted perturbative calculations in QCD

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Sven-Olaf Moch
• Subject Area: Nuclear and Elementary Particle Physics, Quantum Mechanics, Relativity, Fields
• Term: from 2014 to 2021
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 261388393

The project pursues the computation of higher order perturbative corrections in QuantumChromodynamics (QCD) by utilizing conformal symmetry. The advertised approach separates the relevant quantities such as anomalous dimensions for renormalization group equations in a "conformal part" and additional corrections proportional to the QCD beta-function. This can be formalized by considering QCD in non-integer dimensions, d = 4 - 2epsilon, at the so-called Banks-Zaks critical point for a vanishing beta-function with the quantity of key interest here being the conformal anomaly of light-ray operators. The approach has already been successfully applied to derive the evolution equations for generalized parton distributions at the next-to-next-toleading order in QCD in the flavor non-singlet case. The proposed project seeks assistance from conformal symmetry to compute also the flavor singlet anomalous dimensions of generalized parton distributions at the next-to-next-to-leading order as well as the coefficient functions for deeply-virtual Compton scattering. It aims at establishing perturbative QCD at the Banks-Zaks critical point as a computational tool for larger classes of observables.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants