The purpose of this paper is to show that, under certain combinatorial conditions on the graph, parametric Feynman integrals can be realized as periods on the complement of the determinant hypersurface in an affine space depending on the number of loops of the Feynman graph. The question of whether the Feynman integrals are periods of mixed Tate motives can then be reformulated (modulo divergences) as a question on a relative cohomology being a realization of a mixed Tate motive. This is the cohomology of the pair of the determinant hypersurface complement and a normal crossings divisor depending only on the number of loops and the genus of the graph. We show explicitly that this relative cohomology is a realization of a mixed Tate motive in the case of three loops and we give alternative formulations of the main question in the general case, by describing the locus of intersection of the divisor with the determinant hypersurface complement in terms of intersections of unions of Schubert cells in flag varieties. We also discuss different methods of regularization aimed at removing the divergences of the Feynman integral.
We consider the infinite family of Feynman graphs known as the "banana graphs" and compute explicitly the classes of the corresponding graph hypersurfaces in the Grothendieck ring of varieties as well as their Chern-Schwartz-MacPherson classes, using the classical Cremona transformation and the dual graph, and a blowup formula for characteristic classes. We outline the interesting similarities between these operations and we give formulae for cones obtained by simple operations on graphs. We formulate a positivity conjecture for characteristic classes of graph hypersurfaces and discuss briefly…
To any Feynman graph (with 2n edges) we can associate a hypersurface X\subset\PP^{2n-1}. We study the middle cohomology H^{2n-2}(X) of such hypersurfaces. S. Bloch, H. Esnault, and D. Kreimer (Commun. Math. Phys. 267, 2006) have computed this cohomology for the first series of examples, the wheel with spokes graphs WS_n, n\geq 3. Using the same technique, we introduce the generalized zigzag graphs and prove that W_5(H^{2n-2}(X))=\QQ(-2) for all of them (with W_{*} the weight filtration). Next, we study primitively log divergent graphs with small number of edges and the behavior of graph hypers…
We give a general procedure to construct algebro-geometric Feynman rules, that is, characters of the Connes-Kreimer Hopf algebra of Feynman graphs that factor through a Grothendieck ring of immersed conical varieties, via the class of the complement of the affine graph hypersurface. In particular, this maps to the usual Grothendieck ring of varieties, defining motivic Feynman rules. We also construct an algebro-geometric Feynman rule with values in a polynomial ring, which does not factor through the usual Grothendieck ring, and which is defined in terms of characteristic classes of singular v…
We present a method for computing the framing on the cohomology of graph hypersurfaces defined by the Feynman differential form. This answers a question of Bloch, Esnault and Kreimer in the affirmative for an infinite class of graphs for which the framings are Tate motives. Applying this method to the modular graphs of Brown and Schnetz, we find that the Feynman differential form is not of Tate type in general. This finally disproves a folklore conjecture stating that the periods of Feynman integrals of primitive graphs in phi^4 theory factorise through a category of mixed Tate motives.
For a smooth hypersurface of even dimension, the quadratic character of the absolute Galois group defined by the determinant of the l-adic cohomology of middle dimension is computed via the square root of the discriminant of a defining polynomial of the hypersurface.
In this note, we introduce and study position space Feynman quadrics that are the loci of divergences of the position space Feynman integrals for Euclidean massless scalar quantum field theories. We prove that the Feynman quadrics define objects in the category of mixed Tate motives for complete graphs with a bound on the number of vertices. This result shows a strong contrast with the graph hypersurfaces approach which produces also non-mixed Tate examples.
We formulate the problem of renormalization of Feynman integrals and its relation to periods of motives in configuration space instead of momentum space. The algebro-geometric setting is provided by the wonderful compactifications of arrangements of subvarieties associated to the subgraphs of a Feynman graph and a (quasi)projective variety. The motive and the class in the Grothendieck ring are computed explicitly for these wonderful compactifications, in terms of the motive of the variety and the combinatorics of the Feynman graph, using recent results of Li Li. The pullback to the wonderful c…
We study the behavior of the Chern classes of graph hypersurfaces under the operation of deletion-contraction of an edge of the corresponding graph. We obtain an explicit formula when the edge satisfies two technical conditions, and prove that both these conditions hold when the edge is multiple in the graph. This leads to recursions for the Chern classes of graph hypersurfaces for graphs obtained by adding parallel edges to a given (regular) edge. Analogous results for the case of Grothendieck classes of graph hypersurfaces were obtained in previous work. Both Grothendieck classes and Chern c…
The characteristic polynomial of an $r$-tuple $(A_1,..., A_r)$ of $n \times n$ matrices is the determinant $\det(x_0 I + x_1 A_1 + ... + x_r A_r)$. We show that if $r$ is at least 3 and $A = (A_1,..., A_r)$ is an $r$-tuple of matrices in general position, then up to conjugacy there are only finitely many $r$-tuples of matrices with the same characteristic polynomial as $A$. Equivalently, the locus of determinantal hypersurfaces of degree $n$ in $P^r$ is irreducible of dimension $(r-1)n^2 + 1$.
We asymptotically estimate from above the expected Betti numbers of random real hypersurfaces in smooth real projective manifolds. Our upper bounds grow as the square root of the degree of the hypersurfaces as the latter grows to infinity, with a coefficient involving the Kählerian volume of the real locus of the manifold as well as the expected determinant of random real symmetric matrices of given index. In particular, for large dimensions, these coefficients get exponentially small away from mid-dimensional Betti numbers. In order to get these results, we first establish the equidistributio…
This expository text is about using toric geometry and mirror symmetry for evaluating Feynman integrals. We show that the maximal cut of a Feynman integral is a GKZ hypergeometric series. We explain how this allows to determine the minimal differential operator acting on the Feynman integrals. We illustrate the method on sunset integrals in two dimensions at various loop orders. The graph polynomials of the multi-loop sunset Feynman graphs lead to reflexive polytopes containing the origin and the associated variety are ambient spaces for Calabi-Yau hypersurfaces. Therefore the sunset family is…
Let M be a matrix whose entries are power series in several variables and determinant det(M) does not vanish identically. The equation det(M)=0 defines a hypersurface singularity and the (co)-kernel of M is a maximally Cohen-Macaulay module over the local ring of this singularity. Suppose the determinant det(M) is reducible, i.e. the hypersurface is locally reducible. A natural question is whether the matrix is equivalent to a block-diagonal or at least to an upper-block-triangular. (Or whether the corresponding module is decomposable or at least is an extension.) We give various necessary and…
We study the related questions: (i) when Feynman amplitudes in massless $ϕ^4$ theory evaluate to multiple zeta values, and (ii) when their underlying motives are mixed Tate. More generally, by considering configurations of singular hypersurfaces which fiber linearly over each other, we deduce sufficient geometric and combinatorial criteria on Feynman graphs for both (i) and (ii) to hold. These criteria hold for some infinite classes of graphs which essentially contain all cases previously known to physicists. Calabi-Yau varieties appear at the point where these criteria fail.
This expository text is an invitation to the relation between quantum field theory Feynman integrals and periods. We first describe the relation between the Feynman parametrization of loop amplitudes and world-line methods, by explaining that the first Symanzik polynomial is the determinant of the period matrix of the graph, and the second Symanzik polynomial is expressed in terms of world-line Green's functions. We then review the relation between Feynman graphs and variations of mixed Hodge structures. Finally, we provide an algorithm for generating the Picard-Fuchs equation satisfied by the…
Let SU_X(3) be the moduli space of semi-stable vector bundles of rank 3 and trivial determinant on a curve X of genus 2. It maps onto P^8 and the map is a double cover branched over a sextic hypersurface called the Coble sextic. In the dual P^8 there is a unique cubic hypersurface, the Coble cubic, singular exactly along the abelian surface of degree 1 line bundles on X. We give a new proof that these two hypersurfaces are dual. As an immediate corollary, we derive a Torelli-type result.
We determine explicitly the Hodge ideals for the determinant hypersurface as an intersection of symbolic powers of determinantal ideals. We prove our results by studying the Hodge and weight filtrations on the mixed Hodge module O_X(*Z) of regular functions on the space X of n x n matrices, with poles along the divisor Z of singular matrices. The composition factors for the weight filtration on O_X(*Z) are pure Hodge modules with underlying D-modules given by the simple GL-equivariant D-modules on X, where GL is the natural group of symmetries, acting by row and column operations on the matrix…
We study the geometry and Hodge theory of the cubic hypersurfaces attached to two-loop Feynman integrals for generic physical parameters. We show that the Hodge structure attached to planar two-loop Feynman graphs decomposes into mixed Tate pieces and the Hodge structures of families of hyperelliptic, elliptic, or rational curves depending on the space-time dimension. For two-loop graphs with a small number of edges, we give more precise results. In particular, we recover a result of Bloch arXiv:2105.06132 that in the well-known double box example, there is an underlying family of elliptic cur…
In this paper, we will give an upper bound of the number of auxiliary hypersurfaces in the determinant method, which reformulates an unpublished work of Salberger by Arakelov geometry. One of the key constants will be determined by the pseudo-effective threshold of certain line bundles.
We consider parametric Feynman integrals and their dimensional regularization from the point of view of differential forms on hypersurface complements and the approach to mixed Hodge structures via oscillatory integrals. We consider restrictions to linear subspaces that slice the singular locus, to handle the presence of non-isolated singularities. In order to account for all possible choices of slicing, we encode this extra datum as an enrichment of the Hopf algebra of Feynman graphs. We introduce a new regularization method for parametric Feynman integrals, which is based on Leray coboundari…
Diagonal F-thresholds for determinants and Pfaffians
Otto-von-Guericke-University Magdeburg（马格德堡奥托·冯·古里克大学）；University of Notre Dame（圣母大学）；Institute of Mathematics “Simion Stoilow” of the Romanian Academy（罗马尼亚科学院西米翁·斯托伊洛数学研究所）；University of Cassino and Southern Lazio（卡西诺与南拉齐奥大学）；Visvesvaraya National Institute of Technology, Nagpur（那格浦尔维斯瓦纳特国家技术学院）
Let $X \subset \Bbb P^r$ be a smooth algebraic curve in projective space, over an algebraically closed field of characteristic zero. For each $m \in \Bbb N$, the $m$-flexes of $X$ are defined as the points where the osculating hypersurface of degree $m$ has higher contact than expected, and a hypersurface $H \subset \Bbb P^r$ is called a $m$-Hessian if it cuts $X$ along its $m$-flexes. When $X$ is a complete intersection, we give an expression for a (rational) $m$-Hessian as the Div (in the sense of Grothendieck-Knudsen-Mumford) of a complex of graded free modules naturally associated to $X$. …
Integration-by-parts identities between loop integrals arise from the vanishing integration of total derivatives in dimensional regularization. Generic choices of total derivatives in the Baikov or parametric representations lead to identities which involve dimension shifts. These dimension shifts can be avoided by imposing a certain constraint on the total derivatives. The solutions of this constraint turn out to be a specific type of syzygies which correspond to logarithmic vector fields along the Gram determinant formed of the independent external and loop momenta. We present an explicit ge…
In the first part of this paper we study the coaction dual to the action of the cosmic Galois group on the motivic lift of the sunrise Feynman integral with generic masses and momenta, and we express its conjugates in terms of motivic lifts of Feynman integrals associated to related Feynman graphs. Only one of the conjugates of the motivic lift of the sunrise, other than itself, can be expressed in terms of motivic lifts of Feynman integrals of subquotient graphs. To relate the remaining conjugates to Feynman integrals we introduce a general tool: subdiving edges of a graph. We show that all m…
The amplitude of a Feynman graph in Quantum Field Theory is related to the point-count over finite fields of the corresponding graph hypersurface. This article reports on an experimental study of point counts over F_q modulo q^3, for graphs up to loop order 10. It is found that many of them are given by Fourier coefficients of modular forms of weights <=8 and levels <=17.
Hesse claimed that an irreducible projective hypersurface in $\PP^n$ defined by an equation with vanishing hessian determinant is necessarily a cone. Gordan and Noether proved that this is true for $n\leq 3$ and constructed counterexamples for every $n\geq 4$. Gordan and Noether and Franchetta gave classification of hypersurfaces in $\PP^4$ with vanishing hessian and which are not cones. Here we translate in geometric terms Gordan and Noether approach, providing direct geometrical proofs of these results.
