Finite-volume Analysis of On-shell Subtraction in the Luescher formalism

Abstract

On-shell subtraction is a relevant step in finite-volume analyses, which is to isolate an on-shell singularity and evaluate regular momentum-dependent factors at their on-shell values. For short-range interactions with a finite mass gap, the correction associated with this on-shell subtraction is exponentially suppressed at sufficiently large volume and can therefore be neglected at the corresponding accuracy. We examine how this correction changes as the relevant mass parameter decreases. Using a common dimensional-regularization prescription, we derive analytic expressions for the resulting finite volume correction for representative momentum structures and examine their behavior numerically. For a nonzero mass parameter, the corrections are indeed exponentially suppressed at large $μL$, whereas in the massless limit this suppression is replaced by an enhanced finite-volume dependence. More importantly, the $S$-wave contribution can develop an infrared divergence of finite volume correction in the massless limit. These results clarify the conditions under which on-shell subtraction can be applied and provide guidance for assessing such corrections in finite-volume hadronic calculations involving long-range effects, including QCD+QED.