The three-loop splitting functions in QCD: The helicity-dependent case

We present the next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) contributions to the main splitting functions for the evolution of longitudinally polarized parton densities of hadrons in perturbative QCD. The quark–quark and gluon–quark splitting functions have been obtained by extending our previous all Mellin-N calculations to the structure function g₁ in electromagnetic deep-inelastic scattering (DIS). Their quark–gluon and gluon–gluon counterparts have been derived using third-order fixed-N calculations of structure functions in graviton-exchange DIS, relations to the unpolarized case and mathematical tools for systems of Diophantine equations. The NNLO corrections to the splitting functions are small outside the region of small momentum fractions x where they exhibit a large double-logarithmic enhancement, yet the corrections to the evolution of the parton densities can be unproblematic down to at least x≈10⁻⁴