QCD Amplitudes Research Articles

One-loop QCD amplitudes in the Feynman-diagram gauge

Scattering amplitudes for the massless QCD process, qq¯→q′q¯′, are calculated in the one-loop order in the Feynman-Diagram (FD) gauge, where gluons are quantized on the light cone with opposite direction of the three-momenta. We find non-decoupling of the Faddeev-Popov ghosts and nonconventional UV singularities in dimensional regularization. The known QCD amplitudes with asymptotic freedom are reproduced only after summing propagator and vertex corrections. By quantizing gluons in the Feynman gauge on the FD gauge background, we obtain the one-loop improved FD gauge amplitudes. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Two-loop QCD amplitudes for tt¯H\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$ t\\overline{t}H $$\\end{document} production from boosted limit

The production of a Higgs boson in association with a top-antitop quark pair tt¯H\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$ \\left(t\\overline{t}H\\right) $$\\end{document} holds significant importance in directly probing the top-quark Yukawa coupling, which is related to various fundamental questions in high energy physics. This paper focuses on the calculation of two-loop amplitudes for tt¯H\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$ t\\overline{t}H $$\\end{document} production at hadron colliders in the high-energy boosted limit. The calculation employs our recently developed mass-factorization formula. To validate the accuracy of our approximate methods, we compare our results for the one-loop amplitudes and the two-loop infrared poles with the exact calculations. We then provide predictions for the finite parts of the two-loop amplitudes. By combining the contributions from real emissions, our results can be utilized to compute the next-to-next-to-leading order differential cross sections for tt¯H\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$ t\\overline{t}H $$\\end{document} production in the high-energy boosted limit.

On the high-energy behavior of massive QCD amplitudes

In this note, we propose a factorization formula for gauge-theory scattering amplitudes up to two loops in the high-energy boosted limit. Our formula extends existing results in the literature by incorporating the contributions from massive loops. We derive the new ingredients in our formula using the method of regions with analytic regulators for the rapidity divergences. We verify our results with various form factors and the scattering amplitudes for top-quark pair production. Our results can be used to obtain approximate expressions for complicated two-loop massive amplitudes from simpler massless ones, and can be used to resum the mass logarithms to all orders in the coupling constant.

On the breakdown of eikonal approximation and survival of Reggeization in presence of dimension-5 Higgs-gluon coupling

We consider the one-loop effective vertex for the interaction of a gluon with a Reggeized gluon and a Higgs boson in the infinite-top-mass limit, which is described by a dimension-5 non-renormalizable operator. This vertex enters the calculation of differential cross sections for the forward inclusive production of a Higgs boson in high-energy proton-proton collisions, possibly in association with a backward jet or identified hadron, in a framework where next-to-leading logarithms of the energy are resummed to all orders. The effective vertex is extracted from the high-energy behavior of two-to-two amplitudes for the Higgs production in parton-parton collisions and relies on the validity of the Regge form for these amplitudes. We find that the usual eikonal approximation (Gribov prescription) for the Regge limit and the known region-expansion technique in this limit lead to an incomplete result for the amplitude. The discrepancy is traced back to the non-renormalizable nature of the involved operator. However, the Regge limit of the exact QCD amplitude agrees with the Regge-pole exchange form at one loop, nontrivially supporting the Reggeization hypothesis.

Two-loop massive QCD and QED helicity amplitudes for light-by-light scattering

We present the analytic and compact two-loop helicity amplitudes for QCD and QED corrections to the light-by-light scattering process with massive internal fermions. We express the master integrals either in terms of multiple polylogarithms or in terms of iterated integrals with dlog one-forms. We also elaborate on optimising the analytic results for each phase-space region. This makes the numerical evaluation of the scattering amplitudes fast, stable and suitable for phenomenological applications.

Double copy for tree-level form factors. Part I. Foundations

The double-copy construction for form factors was reported in our previous work, in which a novel mechanism of turning spurious poles in Yang-Mills theory into physical poles in gravity is observed. This paper is the first of a series of two papers providing the details as well as various generalizations on the double-copy construction of tree-level form factors. In this paper, we establish the generic formalism by focusing on the form factor of tr(ϕ2) in the Yang-Mills-scalar theory. A thorough discussion is given on the emergence of the “spurious”-type poles and various related properties. We also discuss two generalizations: the Higgs amplitudes in QCD, and the tr(ϕ2) form factors with multiple external scalar states.

Complete two-loop QCD amplitudes for tW production at hadron colliders

We have calculated the complete two-loop QCD amplitudes for hadronic tW production by combining analytical and numerical techniques. The amplitudes have been first reduced to master integrals of eight planar and seven non-planar families, which can contain at most four massive propagators. Then a rational transformation of the master integrals is found to obtain a good basis so that the dimensional parameter decouples from the kinematic variables in the denominators of reduction coefficients. The master integrals are computed by solving their differential equations numerically. We find that the finite part of the two-loop squared amplitude is stable in the bulk of the phase space. After phase space integration and convolution with the parton distributions, it increases the LO cross section at the 13 TeV LHC by about 3%.

Locally finite two-loop QCD amplitudes from IR universality for electroweak production

We describe the implementation of infrared subtractions for two-loop QCD corrections to quark-antiquark annihilation to electroweak final states. The subtractions are given as form-factor integrands whose integrals are known. The resulting subtracted amplitudes are amenable to efficient numerical integration. Our procedure is based on the universality of infrared singularities and requires a relatively limited set of subtractions, whose number grows as the number of two-loop diagrams, rather than with the number of singular regions of integration.

Loop-level double-copy for massive fermions in the fundamental

We find that unitarity cuts and the duality between color and kinematics are sufficient constraints to bootstrap D-dimensional QCD scattering amplitudes starting from three-particle tree-level. Specifically, we calculate tree level amplitudes through six-points, as well as the four-point one-loop correction for massive fermions in the fundamental representation of the gauge group — constructing a color-dual representation of the latter for the first time. To do so we clarify a prescription for functional kinematic ansatze involving fermionic matter. The advantages of color-dual calculation, familiar from particles in the adjoint, also apply here: only a small number of basis topologies must be constrained via physical information of the theory, and algebraic relations propagate this to a full solution. As all the QCD amplitudes we construct here are color-dual, they trivially generate D-dimensional amplitudes in gravitational theories via double-copy construction.

Revisiting the double-soft asymptotics of one-loop amplitudes in massless QCD

We evaluate the one-loop soft current for the emission of two soft gluons or a soft quark-anti-quark pair in massless Quantum Chromodynamics. The results are exact in dimensional regularisation up to a single Feynman integral. Two terms of the Taylor series of the latter integral as a function of ϵ ≡ (4 − d)/2 with d the dimension of spacetime are available from a recent calculation of one-loop triple-collinear splitting functions. Our formulae are necessary for the construction of a subtraction scheme for the evaluation of next-to-next-to-next-to-leading order cross sections in massless QCD.

One-loop hexagon integral to higher orders in the dimensional regulator

The state-of-the-art in current two-loop QCD amplitude calculations is at five-particle scattering. Computing two-loop six-particle processes requires knowledge of the corresponding one-loop amplitudes to higher orders in the dimensional regulator. In this paper we compute analytically the one-loop hexagon integral via differential equations. In particular we identify its function alphabet for general D-dimensional external states. We also provide integral representations for all one-loop integrals up to weight four. With this, the one-loop integral basis is ready for two-loop amplitude applications. We also study in detail the difference between the conventional dimensional regularization and the four-dimensional helicity scheme at the level of the master integrals and their function space.

Infrared Singularities of Multileg QCD Amplitudes with a Massive Parton at Three Loops

We derive the structure of three-loop anomalous dimensions governing infrared singularities of QCD amplitudes with one massive and an arbitrary number of massless external partons. The contributions of tripole and quadrupole correlations involving a massive parton are studied in detail. The analytical expression of tripole correlations between one massive and two massless partons is obtained at three loops for the first time. We regularize the infrared divergences in the soft matrix element in a novel approach, where no extra scale dependence is involved, and the calculation can be performed in momentum space. Our results are essential to improve the theoretical predictions of single top and top quark pair productions at hadron colliders.

Explicit computation of jet functions in coordinate space

I review the main results leading to Factorization of QCD amplitudes in momentum space and, in view of the analogue results in coordinate space, the one-loop jet function in coordinate space is computed and Landau's equations for the Abelian radiative corrections to it are studied. Furthermore, two of these radiative corrections are reduced in quadrature.

Searching for Kerr in the 2PM amplitude

The classical scattering of spinning objects is well described by the spinor-helicity formalism for heavy particles. Using these variables, we derive spurious-pole-free, all-spin opposite-helicity Compton amplitudes (factorizing on physical poles to the minimal, all-spin three-point amplitudes) in the classical limit for QED, QCD, and gravity. The cured amplitudes are subject to deformations by contact terms, the vast majority of whose contributions we can fix by imposing a relation between spin structures — motivated by lower spin multipoles of black hole scattering — at the second post-Minkowskian (2PM) order. For QED and gravity, this leaves a modest number of unfixed coefficients parametrizing contact-term deformations, while the QCD amplitude is uniquely determined. Our gravitational Compton amplitude allows us to push the state-of-the-art of spinning-2PM scattering to any order in the spin vectors of both objects; we present results here and in the supplementary material file 2PMSpin8Aux.nb up to eighth order in the spin vectors. Interestingly, despite leftover coefficients in the Compton amplitude, imposing the aforementioned relation between spin structures uniquely fixes some higher-spin parts of the 2PM amplitude.

Quark-gluon backscattering in the Regge limit at one-loop

At small momentum transfer, the quark-gluon scattering cross section dσ/dt has a power-law divergence in the backward scattering region where the outgoing quark is nearly collinear to the incoming gluon. In this Regge limit |t| ≪ s, the leading behavior of the 2 → 2 amplitude can be described by the exchange of Glauber quarks. In Soft-Collinear Effective Theory (SCET) at leading power, Glauber quark exchange is given by five non-local Glauber quark operators, of which only one is generated at tree-level. We show that at leading power the QCD amplitude for quark-gluon backscattering at one-loop can be exactly reproduced by SCET using the tree-level Glauber operator. The agreement between QCD and SCET of the ultraviolet, infrared, and rapidity divergences as well as all logarithms, Glauber phases and finite parts for all polarizations of the external gluons is a strong check on the effective theory. We find that the entire one-loop matching vanishes — there is no correction to the operator generated at tree-level, and the coefficients of the other four operators remain zero at one-loop. This suggests that SCET with Glauber operators may be useful for uncovering new aspects of Regge physics in a systematically improvable way.

Generalized parton distributions from the off-forward Compton amplitude in lattice QCD

We determine the properties of generalised parton distributions (GPDs) from a lattice QCD calculation of the off-forward Compton amplitude (OFCA). By extending the Feynman-Hellmann relation to second-order matrix elements at off-forward kinematics, this amplitude can be calculated from lattice propagators computed in the presence of a background field. Using an operator product expansion, we show that the deeply-virtual part of the OFCA can be parameterised in terms of the low-order Mellin moments of the GPDs. We apply this formalism to a numerical investigation for zero-skewness kinematics at two values of the soft momentum transfer, $t = -1.1, -2.2 \;\text{GeV}^2$, and a pion mass of $m_{\pi}\approx 470\;\text{MeV}$. The form factors of the lowest two moments of the nucleon GPDs are determined, including the first lattice QCD determination of the $n=4$ moments. Hence we demonstrate the viability of this method to calculate the OFCA from first principles, and thereby provide novel constraint on the $x$- and $t$-dependence of GPDs.

Two-Loop Helicity Amplitudes for Diphoton Plus Jet Production in Full Color.

We present the two-loop QCD amplitudes for the production of two photons and a jet at hadron colliders with full-color dependence. This is the first time that radiative corrections for a five-particle scattering process have been computed beyond the leading-color approximation at this perturbative order in QCD. The results presented in this Letter will be crucial to guaranteeing reliable predictions with unprecedented precision for diphoton production at hadron colliders. The methodologies that we describe lead to a significant simplification of the calculation and their applicability extends to a wider range of five-point scattering processes.

One-loop multicollinear limits from 2-point amplitudes on self-dual backgrounds

For scattering amplitudes in strong background fields, it is — at least in principle — possible to perturbatively expand the background to obtain higher-point vacuum amplitudes. In the case of self-dual plane wave backgrounds we consider this expansion for two-point, one-loop amplitudes in pure Yang-Mills, QED and QCD. This enables us to obtain multicollinear limits of 1-loop vacuum amplitudes; the resulting helicity configurations are surprisingly restricted, with only the all-plus helicity amplitude surviving. These results are shown to be consistent with well-known vacuum amplitudes. We also show that for both abelian and non-abelian supersymmetric gauge theories, there is no helicity flip (and hence no vacuum birefringence) on any plane wave background, generalising a result previously known in the Euler-Heisenberg limit of super-QED.

Three-Loop Color-Kinematics Duality: A 24-Dimensional Solution Space Induced by New Generalized Gauge Transformations.

We obtain full-color three-loop, three-point form factors of the stress-tensor supermultiplet and also of a length-3 half-Bogomol'nyi-Prasad-Sommerfield operator in N=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills (SYM) theory based on the color-kinematics duality and on-shell unitarity. The integrand results are verified by all planar and nonplanar unitarity cuts, and they satisfy the minimal power counting of loop momenta and diagrammatic symmetries. Interestingly, these three-loop solutions, while manifesting all dual Jacobi relations, contain a large number of free parameters; in particular, there are 24 free parameters for the form factor of the stress-tensor supermultiplet. Such degrees of freedom are due to a new type of generalized gauge transformation associated with the operator insertion for form factors. We also perform numerical integration and obtain consistent full-color infrared divergences and the known planar remainder. The form factors we obtain can be understood as the N=4 SYM counterparts of three-loop Higgs plus three-gluon amplitudes in QCD and are expected to provide the maximally transcendental parts of the latter.

The pp \u2192 W(\u2192 l\u03bd) + \u03b3 process at next-to-next-to-leading order

We present details of the calculation of the pp → W(→ lν)γ process at next-to-next-to-leading order in QCD, calculated using the jettiness slicing method. The calculation is based entirely on analytic amplitudes. Because of the radiation zero, the NLO QCD contribution from the gq channel is as important as the contribution from the Born qoverline{q} process, disrupting the normal counting of leading and sub-leading contributions. We also assess the importance of electroweak (EW) corrections, including the EW corrections to both the six-parton channel 0 → overline{u} dnu {e}^{+}gamma g and the five-parton channel 0 → overline{u} dnu {e}^{+}gamma . Previous experimental results have been shown to agree with theoretical predictions, taking into account the large experimental errors. With the advent of run II data from the LHC, the statistical errors on the data will decrease, and will be competitive with the error on theoretical predictions for the first time. We present numerical results for sqrt{s} = 7 and 13 TeV. Analytic results for the one-loop six-parton QCD amplitude and the tree-level seven-parton QCD amplitude are presented in appendices.