On twist-two operators in N=4 SYM

We propose a mechanism for calculating anomalous dimensions of higher-spin twist-two operators in N = 4 SYM. We consider the ratio of the two-point functions of the operators and of their superconformal descendants or, alternatively, of the three-point functions of the operators and of the descendants with two protected half-BPS operators. These ratios are proportional to the anomalous dimension and can be evaluated at n - 1 loop in order to determine the anomalous dimension at n loops. We illustrate the method by reproducing the well-known one-loop result by doing only tree-level calculations. We work out the complete form of the first-generation descendants of the twist-two operators and the scalar sector of the second-generation descendants. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.