We present a brief review of current methods for the calculation of multi-loop amplitudes including recent developments. As an example we present the calculation of the second moment of the heavy quark current correlator and the extraction of the values of the charm and bottom quark masses using the results of this calculation.
We establish an efficient polynomial-complexity algorithm for one-loop calculations, based on generalized $D$-dimensional unitarity. It allows automated computations of both cut-constructible {\it and} rational parts of one-loop scattering amplitudes from on-shell tree amplitudes. We illustrate the method by (re)-computing all four-, five- and six-gluon scattering amplitudes in QCD at one-loop.
A precise understanding of LHC phenomenology requires the inclusion of one-loop corrections for multi-particle final states. In this talk we describe a semi-numerical method to compute one-loop amplitudes with many external particles and present first applications.
Two-loop four-gluon N=4 susy amplitudes are evaluated via cutting techniques as a testing ground for QCD. A conjecture for four-point amplitudes to all loop orders is described. We also present a new conjecture for the leading-color part of the two-loop five-gluon amplitudes.
This article discusses the occurences of one-loop amplitudes within a next-to-next-to-leading order calculation. In an NNLO calculation the one-loop amplitude enters squared and one would therefore naively expect that the O(epsilon)- and O(epsilon^2)-terms of the one-loop amplitudes are required. I show that the calculation of these terms can be avoided if a method is known, which computes the O(epsilon^0)-terms of the finite remainder function of the two-loop amplitude.
The infrared structure of (multi-loop) scattering amplitudes is determined entirely by the identities of the external particles participating in the scattering. The two-loop infrared structure of pure \qcd\ amplitudes has been known for some time. By computing the two-loop amplitudes for $\bar{f}\,f\longrightarrow X$ and $\bar{f}\,f\longrightarrow V_1\,V_2$ scattering in an $SU(N)\times SU(M)\times U(1)$ gauge theory, I determine the anomalous dimensions which govern the infrared structure for any massless two-loop amplitude.
We review the conventional field theory description of the string motivated technique. This technique is applied to the one-loop five-gluon amplitude. To evaluate the amplitude a general method for computing dimensionally regulated one-loop integrals is outlined including results for one-loop integrals required for the pentagon diagram and beyond. Finally, two five-gluon helicity amplitudes are given.
I report on progress in the calculation of one-loop amplitudes with a space-like gluon. Amplitudes with space-like partons are relevant for factorization procedure s that require initial-state partons with non-vanishing transverse momentum components.
We compute all two-loop master integrals which are required for the evaluation of next-to-leading order QCD corrections in Higgs boson production via gluon fusion. Many two-loop amplitudes for 2 -> 1 processes in the Standard Model and beyond can be expressed in terms of these integrals using automated reduction techniques. These integrals also form a subset of the master integrals for more complicated 2 -> 2 amplitudes with massive propagators in the loops. As a first application, we evaluate the two-loop amplitude for Higgs boson production in gluon fusion via a massive quark. Our result is …
The amplitude for the collision of two hadrons with the lowest order pomeron loop is calculated. Numerical calculations show that the loop contribution to the amplitude begins to dominate the single pomeron exchange at rapidities 8-10. Full dependence of the triple-pomeron vertex on intermediate conformal weights is taken into account.
We shall discuss about the infrared finitness and some analyticity properties of the loop-loop scattering amplitudes in gauge theories, when going from Minkowskian to Euclidean theory, and we shall see how they can be related to the still unsolved problem of the s-dependence of the hadron-hadron total cross-sections.
We present the one-loop helicity amplitudes with five external gluons. The computation employs string-based methods, new techniques for performing tensor integrals, and improvements in the spinor helicity method.
We present results for the two-loop helicity amplitudes entering the NLO QCD corrections to the production of a Higgs boson in association with a $Z$-boson in gluon fusion. The two-loop integrals, involving massive top quarks, are calculated numerically. Results for the interference of the finite part of the two-loop amplitudes with the Born amplitude are shown as a function of the two kinematic invariants on which the amplitudes depend.
We show that a well-known simple formula for the explicit infrared poles of one-loop QCD amplitudes has a corresponding simple counterpart in unintegrated form. The unintegrated formula approximates the integrand of one-loop QCD amplitudes in all soft and collinear singular regions. It thus defines a local counter-term for the infrared singularities and can be used as an ingredient for the numerical calculation of one-loop amplitudes.
The unitarity method for calculating one-loop amplitudes provides algorithms of polynomial complexity. This is primarily beneficial for the computation of multi-leg one loop amplitudes and it is therefore of great interest to develop a numerical implementation of the unitarity method. We describe a recently-developed, efficient, semi-numerical unitarity method for the computation of the cut-constructible part of one-loop amplitudes.
We study the factorisation properties of one-loop scattering amplitudes in the triple collinear limit and extract the universal splitting amplitudes for processes initiated by a gluon. The splitting amplitudes are derived from the analytic Higgs plus four partons amplitudes. We present compact results for primitive helicity splitting amplitudes making use of super-symmetric decompositions. The universality of the collinear factorisation is checked numerically against the full colour six parton squared matrix elements.
Recent progress in unitarity techniques for one-loop scattering amplitudes makes a numerical implementation of this method possible. We present a 4-dimensional unitarity method for calculating the cut-constructible part of amplitudes and implement the method in a numerical procedure. Our technique can be applied to any one-loop scattering amplitude and offers the possibility that one-loop calculations can be performed in an automatic fashion, as tree-level amplitudes are currently done. Instead of individual Feynman diagrams, the ingredients for our one-loop evaluation are tree-level amplitude…
Recently the calculations of all five-parton one-loop QCD amplitudes have been completed. In this letter we describe how to get the corresponding amplitudes with one gluon replaced by a photon and we give the explicit results for the process $0 \to 2q 2Q 1\y$.
We recompute the functions describing the collinear factorization of one-loop amplitudes using the unitarity-based method. We present the results in a form suitable for use as an ingredient in two-loop calculations. We also present a function summarizing the behavior at one loop in both the soft and collinear limits.
One-loop amplitudes are to a large extent determined by their unitarity cuts in four dimensions. We show that the remaining rational terms can be obtained from the ultraviolet behaviour of the amplitude, and determine universal form factors for these rational parts by applying reduction techniques to the Feynman diagrammatic representation of the amplitude. The method is valid for massless and massive internal particles. We illustrate this method by evaluating the rational terms of the one-loop amplitudes for gg --> H, the 4-photon and 4-gluon amplitude, the amplitude for 2 photons plus 3 gluo…
We apply the solution to the recursion relation for the double-off-shell quark current to the problem of computing one loop amplitudes with an arbitrary number of gluons. We are able to compute amplitudes for photon-gluon scattering, electron-positron annihilation to gluons, and gluon-gluon scattering via a quark loop in the case of like-helicity gluons. In addition, we present the result for the one-loop gluon-gluon scattering amplitude when one of the gluons has opposite helicity from the others.
An efficient numerical algorithm to evaluate one-loop amplitudes using tensor integrals is presented. In particular, it is shown by explicit calculations that for ordered QCD amplitudes with a number of external legs up to 10, its performance is competitive with other methods.
A simple algorithm is presented to decompose any 1-loop amplitude for scattering processes of the class 2 fermions -> 4 fermions into a fixed number of gauge-invariant form factors. The structure of the amplitude is simpler than in the conventional approaches and its numerical evaluation is made faster. The algorithm can be efficiently applied also to amplitudes with several thousands of Feynman diagrams.
The values at pseudothreshold of two loop sunrise master amplitudes with arbitrary masses are obtained by solving a system of differential equations. The expansion at pseudothreshold of the amplitudes is constructed and some lowest terms are explicitly presented.
We present the public C++ library Ninja, which implements the Integrand Reduction via Laurent Expansion method for the computation of one-loop integrals. The algorithm is suited for applications to complex one-loop processes.
We show how to extract the coefficients of the 4-, 3-, 2- and 1-point one-loop scalar integrals from the full one-loop amplitude of arbitrary scattering processes. In a similar fashion, also the rational terms can be derived. Basically no information on the analytical structure of the amplitude is required, making our method appealing for an efficient numerical implementation
Recent progress in our understanding of infrared singularities of multi-parton amplitudes has shown that the simplest form of Regge factorization for high-energy gauge-theory amplitudes fails starting at next-to-next-to-leading logarithmic accuracy. We provide a framework to organize the calculation of parton amplitudes at leading power in t/s, in terms of factorizing and non-factorizing contributions. This allows us to give explicit expressions for the leading Reggeization-breaking terms in two-loop and three-loop quark and gluon amplitudes in QCD. In particular, using only infrared informati…
We present results for the six-gluon scattering amplitude at one-loop. Since our method is semi-numerical, it yields the result for arbitrary momenta and helicities of the external gluons. We evaluate the colour-ordered sub-amplitudes with gluons, fermions and scalars running in the internal loop. This is more than sufficient to give a complete description of six-gluon scattering at one-loop in QCD. Combination of these results into amplitudes with ${\cal{N}}=4$ and ${\cal{N}}=1$ multiplets of supersymmetric Yang-Mills or with a complex scalar in the internal loops allows comparison with analy…
We present the publicly available program NGluon allowing the numerical evaluation of primitive amplitudes at one-loop order in massless QCD. The program allows the computation of one-loop amplitudes for an arbitrary number of gluons. The focus of the present article is the extension to one-loop amplitudes including an arbitrary number of massless quark pairs. We discuss in detail the algorithmic differences to the pure gluonic case and present cross checks to validate our implementation. The numerical accuracy is investigated in detail.
In the context of constructing one-loop amplitudes using a unitarity bootstrap approach we discuss a general systematic procedure for obtaining the coefficients of the scalar bubble and triangle integral functions of one-loop amplitudes. Coefficients are extracted after examining the behaviour of the cut integrand as the unconstrained parameters of a specifically chosen parametersiation of the cut loop momentum approach infinity.
We calculate the one-loop QCD virtual corrections to all helicity amplitudes for parton level virtual Compton scattering processes. We include the amplitudes both on quark target process $γ^* q\toγq$ and on gluon target process $γ^*g\toγg$. The infrared pole structure of the amplitudes is in agreement with the prediction of Catani's general formalism for the singularities of one-loop amplitudes, while expressions for the finite remainder are given in terms of logarithms and dilogarithms that are real in the physical region.
We provide two two-loop amplitudes relevant for precision Higgs physics. The first is the two-loop amplitude for Higgs boson production through gluon fusion with exact dependence on the top quark mass up to squared order in the dimensional regulator $ε$. The second result we provide is the two-loop amplitude for the decay of a Higgs boson into a pair of massive bottom quarks through the Higgs-to-gluon coupling in the infinite top mass limit. Both amplitudes are computed by finding canonical bases of master integrals, which we evaluate explicitly in terms of harmonic polylogarithms. We obtain t…
We perform a dedicated study of the $q \bar{q}$-initiated two-loop electroweak-QCD Drell-Yan scattering amplitude in dimensional regularization schemes for vanishing light quark and lepton masses. For the relative order $α$ and $α_s$ one-loop Standard Model corrections, details of our comparison to the original literature are given. The infrared pole terms of the mixed two-loop amplitude are governed by a known generalization of the dipole formula and we show explicitly that exactly the same two-loop polarized hard scattering functions are obtained in both the standard 't Hooft-Veltman-Breiten…
Recently, a color decomposition using structure constants was introduced for purely gluonic tree amplitudes, in a compact form involving only the linearly independent subamplitudes. We give two proofs that this decomposition holds for an arbitrary number of gluons. We also present and prove similar decompositions at one loop, both for pure gluon amplitudes and for amplitudes with an external quark-antiquark pair.
A powerful tool for calculations in non-Abelian gauge theories is obtained by combining the background field gauge, the helicity basis and the color decomposition methods. It has reproduced the one-loop calculation of the five-gluon amplitudes in QCD, is applicable to electroweak processes and extendable to two-loop calculations.
We present compact analytic expressions for all one-loop helicity amplitudes contributing to ttbar production at hadron colliders. Using recently developed generalised unitarity methods and a traditional Feynman based approach we produce a fast and flexible implementation.
We present a direct computation of the full color two-loop five-point all-plus Yang-Mills amplitude using four dimensional unitarity and recursion. We present the $SU(N_c)$ amplitudes in compact analytic forms. Our results match the explicit expressions previously computed but do not require full two-loop integral methods.
We discuss algebraic/numeric methods to compute one-loop corrections for multiparticle/jet production cross sections. By using efficient reduction algorithms a compact expression for the gggγγ-> 0 amplitude is obtained. Further a numerical approach for 6-point 1-loop diagrams is presented.
We suggest a new approach for the automatic and fully numerical evaluation of one-loop scattering amplitudes in perturbative quantum field theory. We use suitably formulated dispersion relations to perform the calculation as a convolution of tree-level amplitudes. This allows to take advantage of the iterative numerical algorithms for the evaluation of leading order matrix elements.
A method to define and calculate one-loop amplitudes with an off-shell space-like, or $k_T$-dependent, gluon is presented. It introduces a practical regularization to deal with the divergencies that appear due to linear denominators, and can be applied to arbitarary partonic scattering processes.
The threshold behavior of the master amplitudes for two loop sunrise self-mass graph is studied by solving the system of differential equations, which they satisfy. The expansion at the threshold of the master amplitudes is obtained analytically for arbitrary masses.
We present the full color two-loop six-point all-plus Yang-Mills amplitude in compact analytic form. The computation uses four dimensional unitarity and augmented recursion.
It is shown that in the Glauber scattering of a fast quark in the external field loop corrections to the gluon emission amplitude due to virtual softer gluon after renormalization coincide with a correction due to reggeization of the exchanged gluon in the BFKL picture.
We present the two-loop helicity amplitudes for the scattering of massless quarks in QCD. We use projector techniques to compute the coefficients of the general four-quark amplitude at up to two-loops in conventional dimensional regularisation and use these coefficients to derive the helicity amplitudes in the 't Hooft-Veltman scheme. The structure of the infrared divergences agrees with that predicted by Catani while expressions for the finite remainders for $q \bar q \to Q\bar Q$ and the processes related by crossing symmetry are given in terms of logarithms and polylogarithms that are real …
We discuss how higher-point QCD amplitudes may be constructed from lower point ones by imposing the factorization constraints in the limits as external momenta become collinear. As a particular example, the all-$n$ gluon one-loop amplitude with maximal helicity violation is presented. We also discuss the necessary collinear behavior of the $n$-gluon amplitudes.
The integrand-level methods for the reduction of scattering amplitudes are well-established techniques, which have already proven their effectiveness in several applications at one-loop. In addition to the automation and refinement of tools for one-loop calculations, during the past year we observed very interesting progress in developing new techniques for amplitudes at two- and higher-loops, based on similar principles. In this presentation, we review the main features of integrand-level approaches with a particular focus on algebraic techniques, such as Laurent series expansion which we use…
We introduce a new technique to generate scattering amplitudes at one loop. Traditional tree algorithms, which handle diagrams with fixed momenta, are promoted to generators of loop-momentum polynomials that we call open loops. Combining open loops with tensor-integral and OPP reduction results in a fully flexible, very fast, and numerically stable one-loop generator. As demonstrated with non-trivial applications, the open-loop approach will permit to obtain precise predictions for a very wide range of collider processes.
The bound state problem for a gauge invariant quark-antiquark system is considered in the instantaneous rest frame. Focus here is on the long range non-perturbative interaction. A two-time Green's function is constructed for Salpeter amplitudes. The corresponding Schrödinger equation is found to be in the Salpeter form with a Wilson-loop term as the instantaneous kernel.
We consider a scalar field, such as the Higgs boson H, coupled to gluons via the effective operator H tr G_{mu nu} G^{mu nu} induced by a heavy-quark loop. We treat H as the real part of a complex field phi which couples to the self-dual part of the gluon field-strength, via the operator phi tr G_{SD mu nu} G_{SD}^{mu nu}, whereas the conjugate field phi^dagger couples to the anti-self-dual part. There are three infinite sequences of amplitudes coupling phi to quarks and gluons that vanish at tree level, and hence are finite at one loop, in the QCD coupling. Using on-shell recursion relations,…
We illustrate the use of recursion relations in the computation of certain one-loop helicity amplitudes containing an arbitrary number of gauge bosons. After a brief review of the recursion relations themselves, we discuss the resolution of the apparent conflict between the spinor helicity method used to solve the recursion relations and the dimensional regulator used in the loop integrals. We then outline the procedure for constructing loop amplitudes, and present two examples of results obtained in this manner.
We compute the contribution of third generation quarks ($t,\ b$) to the two-loop amplitude for on-shell $W$ boson pair production in gluon fusion $gg \to WW$. We present plots for the amplitude across partonic phase space as well as reference values for two kinematic points. The master integrals are efficiently evaluated by numerically solving a system of ordinary differential equations.
We introduce the computer code Recola for the recursive generation of tree-level and one-loop amplitudes in the Standard Model. Tree-level amplitudes are constructed using off-shell currents instead of Feynman diagrams as basic building blocks. One-loop amplitudes are represented as linear combinations of tensor integrals whose coefficients are calculated similarly to the tree-level amplitudes by recursive construction of loop off-shell currents. We introduce a novel algorithm for the treatment of colour, assigning a colour structure to each off-shell current which enables us to recursively co…
We compute the two-loop QCD corrections to $q g \to H q$ and $q \bar{q} \to H g$ amplitudes mediated by loops of nearly massless quarks. These amplitudes provide the last missing ingredient required to compute the NLO QCD corrections to the top-bottom interference contribution to the Higgs boson transverse momentum distribution at hadron colliders.
The various sources of Rational Terms contributing to the one-loop amplitudes are critically discussed. We show that the terms originating from the generic (n-4)-dimensional structure of the numerator of the one-loop amplitude can be derived by using appropriate Feynman rules within a tree-like computation. For the terms that originate from the reduction of the 4-dimensional part of the numerator, we present two different strategies and explicit algorithms to compute them.
We use on-shell recursion relations to determine the one-loop QCD scattering amplitudes with a massless external quark pair and an arbitrary number (n-2) of positive-helicity gluons. These amplitudes are the last of the unknown infrared- and ultraviolet-finite loop amplitudes of QCD. The recursion relations are similar to ones applied at tree level, but contain new non-trivial features corresponding to poles present for complex momentum arguments but absent for real momenta. We present the relations and the compact solutions to them, valid for all n. We also present compact forms for the previ…
We present analytic results for one-loop Higgs boson + $n$-gluon amplitudes for $n\le 5$ in the full theory including all dependence on the (top) quark mass. In this paper we consider only the case where the gluons all have the same helicity. The amplitudes are expressed in simple formula and display similar structure. Their limiting behaviour in small Higgs momentum and large top mass is studied.