Infrared-safe observable (source code)

= Infrared-safe observable

An observable unchanged by adding a particle with vanishing energy or replacing one massless particle by exactly collinear particles with the same total momentum. This property permits cancellation of real and virtual <infrared divergences> and <collinear divergences> in its perturbative cross-section. Fully inclusive electron-positron hadronic rates and suitably defined jet observables are examples.