Three-loop rapidity anomalous dimension for jet-veto cross sections

Abstract

We present the first calculation of the third-order corrections to the rapidity anomalous dimension for jet-veto cross sections. This is a crucial ingredient for the resummation of these scattering observables in key processes such as colour-singlet and heavy-quark-pair production at hadron colliders. More precisely, our results enable the next-to-next-to-next-to-leading logarithmic (N$^3$LL) resummation of the jet-veto cross section for colour singlet production at the LHC, with immediate phenomenological relevance. The anomalous dimension is extracted from a calculation of the three-loop soft function in soft-collinear effective field theory, and is presented as a function of the jet radius $R$ for the clustering algorithms of the generalised-$k_t$ family. To handle the complexity associated with the clustering algorithm, we formulate a semi-numerical computational approach. This strategy is itself a result of the paper, and can be extended to the calculation of other anomalous dimensions and soft functions at three loops.