Two-loop electroweak Sudakov logarithms for massive fermion scattering

Abstract

We study the asymptotic behaviour of two-loop electroweak corrections at energies Q >> M_W, where logarithms of the type ln(Q/M_W) become dominant. The calculation of the leading and next-to-leading logarithmic terms for massless and massive fermion-scattering processes is summarized. The derivations are performed diagrammatically within the spontaneously broken electroweak theory. We find that the soft and collinear singularities resulting from photons can be factorized into a QED-like term and that, up to logarithms of the Z-W mass ratio, the effects of symmetry breaking cancel. This result supports resummation prescriptions that are based on a symmetric SU(2)xU(1) theory matched with QED at the electroweak scale.

Comments: To appear in the proceedings of 8th International Symposium on Radiative Corrections (RADCOR 2007): Application of Quantum Field Theory to Phenomenology, Florence, Italy, 1-6 Oct 2007