Universality of TMD correlators

¹ Nikhef and Department of Physics and Astronomy, VU University Amsterdam, De Boelelaan 1081, NL-1081 HV Amsterdam, the Netherlands
² Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Powai, Mumbai 400076, India

^a e-mail: m.g.a.buffing@vu.nl
^b e-mail: asmita@phy.iitb.ac.in
^c e-mail: p.j.g.mulders@vu.nl

Published online: 23 January 2015

Abstract

In a high-energy scattering process with hadrons in the initial state, color is involved. Transverse momentum dependent distribution functions (TMDs) describe the quark and gluon distributions in these hadrons in momentum space with the inclusion of transverse directions. Apart from the (anti)-quarks and gluons that are involved in the hard scattering process, additional gluon emissions by the hadrons have to be taken into account as well, giving rise to Wilson lines or gauge links. The TMDs involved are sensitive to the process under consideration and hence potentially nonuniversal due to these Wilson line interactions with the hard process; different hard processes give rise to different Wilson line structures. We will show that in practice only a finite number of universal TMDs have to be considered, which come in different linear combinations depending on the hard process under consideration, ensuring a generalized universality. For quarks this gives rise to three Pretzelocity functions, whereas for gluons a richer structure of functions arises.