QCD radiative corrections to the soft spectator contribution in the wide angle Compton scattering

Abstract

We derive the complete factorization formula for the leading power contribution in wide angle Compton scattering. It consists of the soft- and hard-spectator contributions. The hard-spectator contribution is well known and defined in the form of the convolution of a hard kernel with the nucleon distribution amplitudes. The soft-spectator contribution describes the scattering which involves the soft modes. We use the soft collinear effective theory in order to define this term in a field theoretical approach. Using the SCET framework we provide the proof of the factorization formula. We also compute the next-to-leading QCD corrections to the hard coefficient function of the soft spectator contribution and perform a phenomenological analysis of existing experimental data within the developed formalism.

Comments: 28 pages, 10 figures