Electroweak Evolution Equations and Isospin Conservation

Abstract

In processes taking place at energies much higher than the weak scale, electroweak corrections can be taken into account by using electroweak evolution equations, that are analogous to the DGLAP equations in QCD. We show that weak isospin conservation in these equations imposes to modify the expressions of the splitting functions commonly used in the literature. These modifications have a profound impact on the parton distribution functions.