Sudakov Factorization and Resummation

Abstract

We present a unified derivation of the resummation of Sudakov logarithms, directly from the factorization properties of cross sections in which they occur. We rederive in this manner the well-known exponentiation of leading and nonleading logarithmic enhancements near the edge of phase space for cross sections such as deeply inelastic scattering, which are induced by an electroweak hard scattering. For QCD hard-scattering processes, such as heavy-quark production, we show that the resummation of nonleading logarithms requires in general mixing in the space of the color tensors of the hard scattering. The exponentiation of Sudakov logarithms implies that many weighted cross sections obey particular evolution equations in momentum transfer, which streamline the computation of their Sudakov exponents. We illustrate this method with the resummation of soft-gluon enhancements of the inclusive Drell-Yan cross section, in both DIS and $\overline{{\rm MS}}$ factorization schemes.