Soft gluon effects in deep-inelastic structure functions

The behaviour of the quark coefficient functions in deep-inelastic scattering is investigated for large values of the Bjorken variable x. By combining results of soft-gluon resummation and fixed-order calculations, we determine the coefficients of the four leading large-x logarithms, alpha(s)(k) [{ln(1 - x)}(2k-1)/(1 - x)](+), l = 1, ..., 4, to all orders in the strong coupling constant alpha(s). This result includes two more terms for the three-loop coefficient functions than previously specified in the literature. The effect of the fifth logarithmic contribution is approximately evaluated. The terms derived here are required, but also seem to be sufficient, for a reliable representation of the coefficient functions at large x. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.