The causal representation of multi-loop scattering amplitudes, obtained from the application of the loop-tree duality formalism, comprehensively elucidates, at integrand level, the behaviour of only physical singularities. This representation is found to manifest compact expressions for multi-loop topologies that have the same number of \textit{vertices}. Interestingly, integrands considered in former studies, with up-to six vertices and $L$ internal lines, display the same structure of up-to four-loop ones. The former is an insight that there should be a correspondence between vertices and the collection of internal lines, \textit{edges}, that characterise a multi-loop topology. By virtue of this relation, in this paper, we embrace an approach to properly classify multi-loop topologies according to vertices and edges. Differently from former studies, we consider the most general topologies, by connecting vertices and edges in all possible ways. Likewise, we provide a procedure to generate causal representation of multi-loop topologies by considering the structure of causal propagators. Explicit causal representations of loop topologies with up-to nine vertices are provided.
We review the recent developments of the Loop-Tree Duality method, focussing our discussion on the first numerical implementation and its use in the direct numerical computation of multi-leg Feynman integrals. Non-trivial examples are presented.
We develop the Tree-Loop Duality Relation for two- and three-loop integrals with multiple identical propagators (multiple poles). This is the extension of the Duality Relation for single poles and multiloop integrals derived in previous publications. We prove a generalization of the formula for single poles to multiple poles and we develop a strategy for dealing with higher-order pole integrals by reducing them to single pole integrals using Integration By Parts.
We study scalar one-loop amplitudes in massive $ϕ^3$-theory within causal loop-tree duality. We derive a recurrence relation for the integrand of the amplitude. The integrand is by construction free of spurious singularities on H-surfaces. Taking renormalisation and contour deformation into account, we obtain the (integrated) amplitude by Monte Carlo integration. We have checked up to seven points that our results agree with analytic results.
We relate a $l$-loop Feynman integral to a sum of phase space integrals, where the integrands are determined by the spanning trees of the original $l$-loop graph. Causality requires that the propagators of the trees have a modified $iδ$-prescription and we present a simple formula for the correct $iδ$-prescription.
We present a new formulation of the loop-tree duality theorem for higher loop diagrams valid both for massless and massive cases. $l$-loop integrals are expressed as weighted sum of trees obtained from cutting $l$ internal propagators of the loop graph. In addition, the uncut propagators gain a modified $i δ$-prescription, named dual-propagators. In this new framework one can go beyond graphs and calculate the integrand of loop amplitudes as a weighted sum of tree graphs, which form a tree-like object. These objects can be computed efficiently via recurrence relations.
Using loop-tree duality, we relate a renormalised $n$-point $l$-loop amplitude in a quantum field theory to a phase-space integral of a regularised $l$-fold forward limit of a UV-subtracted $(n+2l)$-point tree-amplitude-like object. We show that up to three loops the latter object is easily computable from recurrence relations. This defines an integrand of the loop amplitude with a global definition of the loop momenta. Field and mass renormalisation are performed in the on-shell scheme.
We present an extension of the duality theorem, previously defined by S. Catani et al. on the one-loop level, to higher loop orders. The duality theorem provides a relation between loop integrals and tree-level phase-space integrals. Here, the one-loop relation is rederived in a way which is more suitable for its extension to higher loop orders. This is shown in detail by considering the two-loop N-leg master diagram and by a short discussion of the four master diagrams at three loops, in this sketching the general structure of the duality theorem at even higher loop orders.
The duality relation between one-loop integrals and phase-space integrals, developed in a previous work, is extended to higher-order loops. The duality relation is realized by a modification of the customary +i0 prescription of the Feynman propagators, which compensates for the absence of the multiple-cut contributions that appear in the Feynman tree theorem. We rederive the duality theorem at one-loop order in a form that is more suitable for its iterative extension to higher-loop orders. We explicitly show its application to two- and three-loop scalar master integrals, and we discuss the str…
The Loop-Tree Duality (LTD) theorem is an innovative technique to deal with multi-loop scattering amplitudes, leading to integrand-level representations over an Euclidean space. In this article, we review the last developments concerning this framework, focusing on the manifestly causal representation of multi-loop Feynman integrals and scattering amplitudes, and the definition of dual local counter-terms to cancel infrared singularities.
Multiloop scattering amplitudes describing the quantum fluctuations at high-energy scattering processes are the main bottleneck in perturbative quantum field theory. The loop-tree duality is a novel method aimed at overcoming this bottleneck by opening the loop amplitudes into trees and combining them at integrand level with the real-emission matrix elements. In this Letter, we generalize the loop-tree duality to all orders in the perturbative expansion by using the complex Lorentz-covariant prescription of the original one-loop formulation. We introduce a series of mutiloop topologies with ar…
The tree-loop duality relation is used as a starting point to derive the constraints of causality and unitarity. Specifically, the Bogoliubov causality condition is ab initio derived at the individual graph level. It leads to a representation of a graph in terms of lower order cut graphs. Extracting the absorptive part gives then the general unitarity relation (Cutkosky rule). The derivation, being carried out directly in momentum space, holds for any local (polynomial) hermitian interaction vertices. This is in contrast to the technical difficulties arising from contact terms in the spacetime…
Loop-tree duality allows to express virtual contributions in terms of phase-space integrals, thus leading to a direct comparison with real radiation terms. In this talk, we review the basis of the method and describe its application to regularize Feynman integrals. Performing an integrand-level combination of real and virtual terms, we obtain finite contributions that can be computed in four-dimensions. Moreover, this method provides a natural physical interpretation of infrared singularities, their origin and the way that they cancel in the complete computation.
We present a new method to compute higher-order corrections to physical cross-sections, at Next-to-Leading Order and beyond. This method, based on the Loop Tree Duality, leads to locally integrable expressions in four dimensions. By introducing a physically motivated momentum mapping between the momenta involved in the real and the virtual contributions, infrared singularities naturally cancel at integrand level, without the need to introduce subtraction counter-terms. Ultraviolet singularities are dealt with by using dual representations of suitable counter-terms, with some subtleties regardi…
The spinor-helicity formalism has proven to be very efficient in the calculation of scattering amplitudes in quantum field theory, while the loop tree duality (LTD) representation of multi-loop integrals exhibits appealing and interesting advantages with respect to other approaches. In view of the most recent developments in LTD, we exploit the synergies with the spinor-helicity formalism to analyse illustrative one- and two-loop scattering processes. We focus our discussion on the local UV renormalisation of IR and UV finite amplitudes and present a fully automated numerical implementation th…
We present the first comprehensive analysis of the unitarity thresholds and anomalous thresholds of scattering amplitudes at two loops and beyond based on the loop-tree duality, and show how non-causal unphysical thresholds are locally cancelled in an efficient way when the forest of all the dual on-shell cuts is considered as one. We also prove that soft and collinear singularities at two loops and beyond are restricted to a compact region of the loop three-momenta, which is a necessary condition for implementing a local cancellation of loop infrared singularities with the ones appearing in r…
We illustrate a duality relation between one-loop integrals and single-cut phase-space integrals. The duality relation is realised by a modification of the customary +i0 prescription of the Feynman propagators. The new prescription regularizing the propagators, which we write in a Lorentz covariant form, compensates for the absence of multiple-cut contributions that appear in the Feynman Tree Theorem. The duality relation can be extended to generic one-loop quantities, such as Green's functions, in any relativistic, local and unitary field theories.
We extend useful properties of the $H\toγγ$ unintegrated dual amplitudes from one- to two-loop level, using the Loop-Tree Duality formalism. In particular, we show that the universality of the functional form -- regardless of the nature of the internal particle -- still holds at this order. We also present an algorithmic way to renormalise two-loop amplitudes, by locally cancelling the ultraviolet singularities at integrand level, thus allowing a full four-dimensional numerical implementation of the method. Our results are compared with analytic expressions already available in the literature,…
Elaborating on the novel formulation of the loop-tree duality, we introduce the Mathematica package Lotty that automates the latter at multi-loop level. By studying the features of Lotty and recalling former studies, we discuss that the representation of any multi-loop amplitude can be brought in a form, at integrand level, that only displays physical information, which we refer to as the causal representation of multi-loop Feynman integrands. In order to elucidate the role of Lotty in this automation, we recall results obtained for the calculation of the dual representation of integrands up-t…
We introduce a novel construction of a contour deformation within the framework of Loop-Tree Duality for the numerical computation of loop integrals featuring threshold singularities in momentum space. The functional form of our contour deformation automatically satisfies all constraints without the need for fine-tuning. We demonstrate that our construction is systematic and efficient by applying it to more than 100 examples of finite scalar integrals featuring up to six loops. We also showcase a first step towards handling non-integrable singularities by applying our work to one-loop infrared…
We discuss the duality theorem, which provides a relation between loop integrals and phase space integrals. We rederive the duality relation for the one-loop case and extend it to two and higher-order loops. We explicitly show its application to two- and three-loop scalar master integrals and discuss the structure of the occurring cuts.
In this talk, we review the most recent developments of the four-dimensional unsubstraction (FDU) and loop-tree duality (LTD) methods. In particular, we make emphasis on the advantages of the LTD formalism regarding asymptotic expansions of loop integrands.
We review the recent progress on the numerical implementation of the Loop-Tree Duality Method (LTDM) for the calculation of scattering amplitudes. A central point is the analysis of the singularities of the integrand. In the framework of the LTDM some of these singularities cancel out. The ones left over are dealt with by contour deformation. We present details on how to achieve this as well as first results.
We discuss briefly the first numerical implementation of the Loop-Tree Duality (LTD) method. We apply the LTD method in order to calculate ultraviolet and infrared finite multi-leg one-loop Feynman integrals. We attack scalar and tensor integrals with up to six legs (hexagons). The LTD method shows an excellent performance independently of the number of external legs.
We review the recent developments of the loop-tree duality method, focussing our discussion on analysing the singular behaviour of the loop integrand of the dual representation of one-loop integrals and scattering amplitudes. We show that within the loop-tree duality method there is a partial cancellation of singularities at the integrand level among the different components of the corresponding dual representation. The remaining threshold and infrared singularities are restricted to a finite region of the loop momentum space, which is of the size of the external momenta and can be mapped to t…
The Loop-Tree Duality (LTD) is a novel perturbative method in QFT that establishes a relation between loop-level and tree-level amplitudes, which gives rise to the idea of treating them simultaneously in a common Monte Carlo. Initially introduced for one-loop scalar integrals, the applicability of the LTD has been expanded to higher order loops and Feynman graphs beyond simple poles. For the first time, a numerical implementation relying on the LTD was realized in the form of a computer program that calculates one-loop scattering amplitudes. We present details on the employed contour deformati…
First results towards a general method for asymptotic expansions of Feynman amplitudes in the loop-tree duality (LTD) formalism are presented. The asymptotic expansion takes place at integrand-level in the Euclidean space of the loop three-momentum, where the hierarchies among internal and external scales are well-defined. Additionally, the UV behaviour of the individual contributions to the asymptotic expansion emerges only in the first terms of the expansion and is renormalized locally in four space-time dimensions. These two properties represent an advantage over the method of Expansion by …
We present a first numerical implementation of the Loop-Tree Duality (LTD) method for the direct numerical computation of multi-leg one-loop Feynman integrals. We discuss in detail the singular structure of the dual integrands and define a suitable contour deformation in the loop three-momentum space to carry out the numerical integration. Then, we apply the LTD method to the computation of ultraviolet and infrared finite integrals, and present explicit results for scalar integrals with up to five external legs (pentagons) and tensor integrals with up to six legs (hexagons). The LTD method fea…
We study the problem of determining the distribution of vertices of a particular given type in the set of all Feynman tree graphs in quantum field theories. We show that in almost all cases a Gaussian distribution arises asymptotically, and we compute the mean and variance of this distribution for several theories. We show the distribution's `fine structure', arising from topological sum rules, can be obtained.
Characterizing multiloop topologies is an important step towards developing novel methods at high perturbative orders in quantum field theory. In this article, we exploit the Loop-Tree Duality (LTD) formalism to analyse multiloop topologies that appear for the first time at five loops. Explicitly, we open the loops into connected trees and group them according to their topological properties. Then, we identify a kernel generator, the so-called N$^7$MLT universal topology, that allow us to describe any scattering amplitude of up to five loops. Furthermore, we provide factorization and recursion…
Loop Tree Duality (LTD) offers a promising avenue to numerically integrate multi-loop integrals directly in momentum space. It is well-established at one loop, but there have been only sparse numerical results at two loops. We provide a formal derivation for a novel multi-loop LTD expression and study its threshold singularity structure. We apply our findings numerically to a diverse set of up to four-loop finite topologies with kinematics for which no contour deformation is needed. We also lay down the ground work for constructing such a deformation. Our results serve as an important stepping…
The loop-tree duality (LTD) theorem establishes that loop contributions to scattering amplitudes can be computed through dual integrals, which are build from single cuts of the virtual diagrams. In order to build a complete LTD representation of a cross section and to achieve a local cancellation of singularities, it is crucial to include the renormalized self-energy corrections in an unintegrated form. In this document, we calculate the scalar functions related to the self-energy corrections in QED and QCD in the LTD formalism and extract explicitly their UV behaviour.
The Loop-Tree Duality (LTD) is a novel perturbative method in QFT that establishes a relation between loop-level and tree-level scattering amplitudes. This is achieved by directly applying the Residue Theorem to the loop-energy-integration. The result is a sum over all possible single cuts of the Feynman diagram in consideration integrated over a modified phase space. These single-cut integrals, called Dual contributions, are in fact tree-level objects and thus give rise to the opportunity of bringing loop- and tree-contributions together, treating them simultaneously in a common Monte Carlo e…
