Form factors with two operator insertions and the principle of maximal transcendentality

Abstract

We present the first calculations of two-point two-loop form factors (FFs) with a two identical operators insertion in maximally supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory. In this article, we consider the supersymmetry protected half-BPS primary and unprotected Konishi operators. Unlike the FFs of a single operator insertion of the half-BPS primary, the FFs involving two half-BPS operators are found to contain lower transcendentality weight terms in addition to the highest ones. Moreover, in contrast to Sudakov FFs, the highest weight terms of the FFs of a double half-BPS no longer match with that of a double Konishi. We also find that the principle of maximal transcendentality, which dictates the presence of identical highest weight terms in the scalar FFs of half-BPS and quark/gluon FFs in QCD, does not hold true anymore for insertions of two identical operators. We discover the absence of any additional ultraviolet counterterm that could arise from the contact interaction between two composite operators.