Rethinking jets with energy correlators: Tracks, resummation, and analytic continuation

Abstract

We introduce an infinite set of jet substructure observables, derived as projections of N-point energy correlators, that both are convenient for experimental studies and maintain remarkable analytic properties derived from their representations in terms of a finite number of light ray operators. We show that these observables can be computed using tracking or charge information with a simple reweighting by integer moments of nonperturbative track or fragmentation functions. Our results for the projected N-point correlators are analytic functions of N, allowing us to derive resummed results to next-to-leading logarithmic accuracy for all N. We analytically continue our results to noninteger values of N and define a corresponding analytic continuation of the observable, which we term a ν correlator, that can be measured on jets of hadrons at the LHC. This enables observables that probe the leading twist collinear dynamics of jets to be placed into a single analytic family, which we hope will lead to new insights into jet substructure.