The light-ray OPE and conformal colliders

Abstract

We derive a nonperturbative, convergent operator product expansion (OPE) for null-integrated operators on the same null plane in a CFT. The objects appearing in the expansion are light-ray operators, whose matrix elements can be computed by the generalized Lorentzian inversion formula. For example, a product of average null energy (ANEC) operators has an expansion in the light-ray operators that appear in the stress-tensor OPE. An important application is to collider event shapes. The light-ray OPE gives a nonperturbative expansion for event shapes in special functions that we call celestial blocks. As an example, we apply the celestial block expansion to energy-energy correlators in N=4 Super Yang-Mills theory. Using known OPE data, we find perfect agreement with previous results both at weak and strong coupling, and make new predictions at weak coupling through 4 loops (NNNLO).

Comments: 87 pages + appendices; v2: corrected statements about higher transverse spin contributions; v3: updated arXiv metadata (text unchanged); v4: updated discussion of superconvergence in nu-space