Two-loop QED operator matrix elements with massive external fermion lines Original Research Article

The two-loop massive operator matrix elements for the fermionic local twist-2 operators with external massive fermion lines in Quantum Electrodynamics (QED) are calculated up to the constant terms in the dimensional parameter image. We investigate the hypothesis of Berends et al. (1988) that the 2-loop QED initial state corrections to image annihilation into a virtual neutral gauge boson, except power corrections of image, image, can be represented in terms of these matrix elements and the massless 2-loop Wilson coefficients of the Drell–Yan process.