Recoil and threshold corrections in short-distance cross sections

Abstract

We identify and resum corrections associated with the kinematic recoil of the hard scattering against soft-gluon emission in single-particle inclusive cross sections. The method avoids double counting and conserves the flow of partonic energy. It reproduces threshold resummation for high-pT single-particle cross sections, when recoil is neglected, and QTresummation at low QT, when higher-order threshold logarithms are suppressed. We exhibit explicit resummed cross sections, accurate to next-to-leading logarithm, for electroweak annihilation and prompt photon inclusive cross sections.