Two-Loop Soft Corrections and Resummation of the Thrust Distribution in the Dijet Region

Abstract

The thrust distribution in electron-positron annihilation is a classical precision QCD observable. Using renormalization group (RG) evolution in Laplace space, we perform the resummation of logarithmically enhanced corrections in the dijet limit, $T\to 1$ to next-to-next-to-leading logarithmic (NNLL) accuracy. We independently derive the two-loop soft function for the thrust distribution and extract an analytical expression for the NNLL resummation coefficient $g_3$. To combine the resummed expressions with the fixed-order results, we derive the $\log(R)$-matching and $R$-matching of the NNLL approximation to the fixed-order NNLO distribution.

50 pages, 12 figures, 1 table. Few minor changes. Version accepted for publication in JHEP