From correlation functions to event shapes

Understand

We present a new approach to computing event shape distributions or, more precisely, charge flow correlations in a generic conformal field theory (CFT).

• These infrared finite observables are familiar from collider physics studies and describe the angular distribution of global charges in outgoing radiation created from the vacuum by some source.
• The charge flow correlations can be expressed in terms of Wightman correlation functions in a certain limit.
• We explain how to compute these quantities starting from their Euclidean analogues by means of a non-trivial analytic continuation which, in the framework of CFT, can elegantly be performed in Mellin space.