
Collinear Parton Dynamics Beyond DGLAP
Hao Chen,1Max Jaarsma,2, 3 Yibei Li,1Ian Moult,4Wouter J. Waalewijn,2, 3 and Hua Xing Zhu1
1Zhejiang Institute of Modern Physics, Department of Physics, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, 310027, China
2Nikhef, Theory Group, Science Park 105, 1098 XG, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
3Institute for Theoretical Physics Amsterdam and Delta Institute for Theoretical Physics,
University of Amsterdam, Science Park 904, 1098 XH Amsterdam, The Netherlands
4Department of Physics, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06511
Renormalization group evolution equations describing the scale dependence of quantities in quan-
tum chromodynamics (QCD) play a central role in the interpretation of experimental data. Arguably
the most important evolution equations for collider physics applications are the Dokshitzer-Gribov-
Lipatov-Altarelli-Parisi (DGLAP) equations, which describe the evolution of a quark or gluon frag-
menting into hadrons, with only a single hadron identified at a time. In recent years, the study of
the correlations of energy flow within jets has come to play a central role at collider experiments,
necessitating an understanding of correlations, going beyond the standard DGLAP paradigm. In
this Letter we derive a general renormalization group equation describing the collinear dynamics
that account for correlations in the fragmentation. We compute the kernel of this evolution equa-
tion at next-to-leading order (NLO), where it involves the 1 →3 splitting functions, and develop
techniques to solve it numerically. We show that our equation encompasses all previously-known
collinear evolution equations, namely DGLAP and the evolution of multi-hadron fragmentation
functions. As an application of our results, we consider the phenomenologically-relevant example
of energy flow on charged particles, computing the energy fraction in charged particles in e+e−→
hadrons at NNLO. Our results are an important step towards improving the understanding of the
collinear dynamics of jets, with broad applications in jet substructure, ranging from the study of
multi-hadron correlations, to the description of inclusive (sub)jet production, and the advancement
of modern parton showers.
Introduction.—Jets and their substructure play a cen-
tral role in modern collider experiments, both in searches
for beyond the Standard Model physics, as well as for
studying quantum chromodynamics (QCD) [1–3]. Due
to the confinement process, jets are complicated multi-
scale objects, formed by the fragmentation of an initial
energetic quark or gluon at short times, into a collimated
spray of hadrons at long times. Because of this multi-
scale nature, renormalization group equations (RGE)
that describe the scale evolution of jets play a crucial
role in the interpretation of nearly all experimental data.
The most celebrated evolution equation is the
Dokshitzer-Gribov-Lipatov-Altarelli-Parisi (DGLAP) [4–
6] equation, describing the evolution of a quark or gluon
fragmenting into hadrons, with a single hadron identified
at a time and all hadrons summed over. This equation
plays a central role in the description of all aspects of
jets, from perturbative calculations, to parton shower al-
gorithms, to the evolution of fragmentation functions.
Because of this, it has received significant theoretical at-
tention, and been computed to high orders [7–9].
Driven by the high energies, and exceptional resolution
of the detectors at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC),
there has been significant recent interest in understand-
ing the correlations in energy flow within jets, a field
known as jet substructure [1–3]. The theoretical descrip-
tion of such correlations requires an understanding of
the scale evolution of correlations in the fragmentation
process, giving rise to non-linear RGEs, and going be-
yond the standard DGLAP evolution equations. While
FIG. 1. A parton with momentum kfragments into an identi-
fied set of hadrons with momentum fraction PR, distinguished
by a specified quantum number (e.g. electric charge). The
scale evolution of this process is described by a non-linear
renormalization group evolution.
non-linear evolution equations for soft correlations have
existed for quite some time [10–15], similar non-linear
evolution equations incorporating correlations between
collinear partons are not known. Much like their soft
analogs, such non-linear collinear evolution equations will
also be essential for testing higher order collinear correc-
tions to next-generation parton showers [16–24].
In this Letter we derive a general evolution equation for
the fragmentation of collinear partons at next-to-leading
order (NLO), accounting for all correlations, which in-
volves for the first time the complete structure of the
1→3 splitting functions. We also show that our evolu-
tion equation can be reduced to the DGLAP equation,
arXiv:2210.10061v1 [hep-ph] 18 Oct 2022