In this note we evaluate Wilson coefficients for "deep inelastic scattering" (DIS) in N = 4 SYM theory at NLO in perturbation theory, using as a probe an R-symmetry conserved current. They exhibit uniform transcendentality and coincide with the piece of highest transcendentality in the corresponding QCD Wilson coefficients. We extract from the QCD result a NNLO prediction for the N = 4 SYM Wilson coefficient, and comment on the features of its Regge limit asymptotics.
DiscussionAmong the many ways through which the outstanding simplicity of the N = 4 super Yang-Mills (SYM) theory reveals itself, the pattern of transcendentality exhibited by many of the observables computable in a close analytical form has the merit of setting potentially a quite direct link to QCD. In particular, the maximum transcendentality principle [1, 2] (MTP) is the conjectureinspired by special properties [3] for the maximally supersymmetric generalization of BFKL and evolution equations -that in the anomalous dimensions of leading twist operators only terms of highest transcendentality arise, which can be picked up by the 'most complicated' terms of the corresponding QCD results [4,5] with the appropriate color factor prescription C A = C F = N c and T f n f = 2N c . Here a transcendentality weight n is given to each Riemann ζ value ζ n ≡ ζ(n), with a similar tallying for the harmonic sum S n (j), and the principle states that the anomalous dimension γ(j) at n loops is a linear combination of harmonic sums of transcendentality 2n − 1. Several signals of consistency [6,7,8,9,10,11] have lead to assign a predictive power to the MTP, which (combined with other QCD-related properties [59]) has long been the computational strategy for extracting multi-loop anomalous dimensions of twist operators from algebraic Bethe equations [12,13,14,15]. Remarkably, patterns of uniform leading transcendentality -in this case the degree of transcendentality is 2n for n-loop results -appear also in N = 4 SYM scattering amplitudes [11,16] 4 even at the subleading-color (non-planar) level [18], in light-like Wilson loops [19] 5 as well as in 1 lorenzo.bianchi@physik.hu-berlin.de 2