Flow between extremal one-point energy correlators in QCD

Abstract

The energy density generated by a vector current is characterized by a single parameter $a_{\mathcal{E}}$ bounded by unitarity to $-1/2\le a_{\mathcal{E}}\le 1$, with extremal values saturated by free theories of different matter content. Through confinement, QCD transmutes fermionic matter into scalars, revealing a nontrivial flow between extremal correlators. We reconstruct this flow using perturbative QCD and chiral perturbation theory. The observable is accessible with currently available experimental data.

8 pages, 3 figures; v2 published in PRL