Next-to-leading order Balitsky-Kovchegov equation beyond large Nc

Abstract

We calculate finite-Nc corrections to the next-to-leading order (NLO) Balitsky-Kovchegov (BK) equation. We find analytical expressions for the necessary correlators of six Wilson lines in terms of the two-point function using the Gaussian approximation. In a suitable basis, the problem reduces from the diagonalization of a six-by-six matrix to the diagonalization of a three-by-three matrix, which can easily be done analytically. We study numerically the effects of these finite-Nc corrections on the NLO BK equation. In general, we find that the finite-Nc corrections are smaller than the expected 1/N2c∼10%. The corrections may be large for individual correlators, but have less of an influence on the shape of the amplitude as a function of the dipole size. They have an even smaller effect on the evolution speed as a function of rapidity.