Infrared structure of $\mathcal{N}$ = 4 SYM and leading transcendentality principle in gauge theory

Abstract

We present a detailed study on the infrared structure of $\mathcal{N}=4$ SYM and its connection to QCD. Calculation of collinear splitting functions helps to understand the structure and thus one can get infrared safe cross sections. We also demonstrate the factorization property that soft plus virtual part of the cross section satisfies and through factorization, we calculate soft distribution function up to third order in perturbation theory. We show that the soft distribution function is process independent that includes operators as well as external legs. In addition to this we compare our findings against the known results in QCD through principle of maximum transcendentality (PMT). We extend our analysis further for the case of three-point form factors involving stress tensor and find that it violates the PMT while comparing with the corresponding quantity in the standard model, observed for the first time at the level of form factor.