Regge trajectories, detectors, and distributions in the critical O(N) model
Creators
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1.
Princeton University
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2.
California Institute of Technology
Abstract
We explore light-ray operators in the critical O( N ) model in the large- N limit, focusing on leading-twist and leading "horizontal" trajectories. We distinguish between light-ray operators in two conformal frames: detector operators, which characterize event shapes of final states, and distribution operators, which probe initial-state distributions. In particular, we identify parton distribution functions (PDFs) and collinear functions as matrix elements of appropriate distribution operators. We renormalize some simple detector operators at leading order in 1/ N , allowing us to extract the Regge intercept and the anomalous spin of the leading horizontal trajectory. We furthermore renormalize distribution versions of these operators, obtaining the leading-twist splitting function and a BFKL-type kernel, which match results from the detector frame. Finally, we show how these results can be read off from OPE data encoded in the Bethe-Salpeter resummation of conformal four-point functions.
Copyright and License
© The Authors. Article funded by SCOAP3. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY 4.0), which permits any use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited.
Acknowledgement
We thank Cyuan-Han Chang, Hao Chen, Gabriel Cuomo, Simone Giombi, Igor Klebanov, Petr Kravchuk, Simon Caron-Huot, Ian Moult, Sebastian Mizera, and Hua Xing Zhu for useful discussions. We are also grateful to Simon Caron-Huot and Sven Moch for their comments on an earlier version of the draft.
Funding
The work of Y.Z.L is supported in part by the US National Science Foundation under Grant No. PHY-2209997, and in part by Simons Foundation grant No. 917464. DSD is supported in part by Simons Foundation grant 488657 (Simons Collaboration on the Nonperturbative Bootstrap) and the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of High Energy Physics, under Award Number DE-SC0011632.
Files
JHEP02(2026)149.pdf
Additional details
Related works
- Is new version of
- Discussion Paper: arXiv:2506.06419 (arXiv)
Funding
- National Science Foundation
- PHY-2209997
- Simons Foundation
- 917464
- Simons Foundation
- 488657
- United States Department of Energy
- DE-SC0011632
- SCOAP3
Dates
- Submitted
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2025-07-05
- Accepted
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2025-12-26
- Available
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2026-02-13Version of record
Caltech Custom Metadata
- Caltech groups
- Walter Burke Institute for Theoretical Physics , Physics Department , Division of Physics, Mathematics and Astronomy (PMA)
- Publication Status
- Published