Paper detail

Cusped light-like Wilson loops in gauge theories

We propose and discuss a new approach to the analysis of the correlation functions which contain light-like Wilson lines or loops, the latter being cusped in addition. The objects of interest are therefore the light-like Wilson null-polygons, the soft factors of the parton distribution and fragmentation functions, high-energy scattering amplitudes in the eikonal approximation, gravitational Wilson lines, etc. Our method is based on a generalization of the universal quantum dynamical principle by J. Schwinger and allows one to take care of extra singularities emerging due to light-like or semi-light-like cusps. We show that such Wilson loops obey a differential equation which connects the area variations and renormalization group behavior of those objects and discuss the possible relation between geometrical structure of the loop space and area evolution of the light-like cusped Wilson loops.