QCD Amplitudes Research Articles

Asymptotic Hadron Scattering Regimes in QCD

We discuss possible modes of the asymptotic behavior of hadron scattering amplitudes in QCD. We show that the triviality condition for the scattering matrix with the interaction of the fundamental fields turned off leads to the impossibility of cross sections nondecreasing with energy in the case of pure gluodynamics. We also show that this ban is lifted in the presence of at least one type of massive quark. We also discuss some consequences of the presence of an infrared fixed point.

Quark-Mass Dependence of Elastic πK Scattering from QCD.

We present a determination of the isospin-1/2 elastic πK scattering amplitudes in S and P partial waves using lattice quantum chromodynamics. The amplitudes, constrained for a large number of real-valued energy points, are obtained as a function of light-quark mass, corresponding to four pion masses between 200 and 400MeV, at a single lattice spacing. Below the first inelastic threshold, the P-wave scattering amplitude is dominated by a single pole singularity that evolves from being a stable bound state at the highest quark mass into a narrow resonance that broadens as the pion and kaon masses are reduced. As in experiment, the S-wave amplitude does not exhibit an obviously resonant behavior, but instead shows a slow rise from threshold, which is not inconsistent with the presence of a κ/K_{0}^{⋆}(700)-like resonance at the considered quark masses. As has been found in analyses of experimental scattering data, simple analytic continuations into the complex energy plane of precisely determined lattice QCD amplitudes on the real energy axis are not sufficient to model-independently determine the existence and properties of this state. The spectra and amplitudes we present will serve as an input for increasingly elaborate amplitude analysis techniques that implement more of the analytic structure expected at complex energies.

Quarkonium inside the quark-gluon plasma: Diffusion, dissociation, recombination, and energy loss

We consider the quarkonium diffusion, dissociation and recombination inside quark-gluon plasma. We compute scattering amplitudes in potential nonrelativistic QCD for relevant processes. These processes include the gluon absorption/emission at the order $gr$, inelastic scattering at the order $g^2r$ and elastic scattering with medium constituents at the order $g^2r^2$. We show these amplitudes satisfy the Ward identity. We also consider one-loop corrections. The dipole interaction between the color singlet and octet is not running at the one-loop level. Interference between the tree-level gluon absorption/emission and its thermal loop corrections cancels the collinear divergence in the $t$-channel inelastic scattering. The inelastic scattering has no soft divergence because of the finite binding energy of quarkonium. We write out the diffusion, dissociation and recombination terms explicitly for a Boltzmann transport equation and define the dissociation and recombination rates. Furthermore, we calculate the diffusion coefficient of quarkonium. We find our result of diffusion coefficient differs from a previous calculation by two to three orders of magnitude. We explain this and can reproduce the previous result in a certain limit. Finally we discuss two mechanisms of quarkonium energy loss inside quark-gluon plasma.

Matching the meson quasidistribution amplitude in the RI/MOM scheme

The $x$-dependence of light-cone distribution amplitude (LCDA) can be directly calculated from a quasi distribution amplitude (DA) in lattice QCD within the framework of large-momentum effective theory (LaMET). In this paper, we study the one-loop renormalization of the quasi-DA in the regularization-independent momentum subtraction (RI/MOM) scheme. The renormalization factor for the quasi parton distribution function can be used to renormalize the quasi-DA provided that they are implemented on lattice and in perturbation theory in the same manner. We derive the one-loop matching coefficient that matches quasi-DA in the RI/MOM scheme onto LCDA in the $\overline{\rm MS}$ scheme. Our result provides the crucial step to extract the LCDAs from lattice matrix elements of quasi-DAs.

Analytic form of the planar two-loop five-parton scattering amplitudes in QCD

We present the analytic form of all leading-color two-loop five-parton helicity amplitudes in QCD. The results are analytically reconstructed from exact numerical evaluations over finite fields. Combining a judicious choice of variables with a new approach to the treatment of particle states in D dimensions for the numerical evaluation of amplitudes, we obtain the analytic expressions with a modest computational effort. Their systematic simplification using multivariate partial-fraction decomposition leads to a particularly compact form. Our results provide all two-loop amplitudes required for the calculation of next-to-next-to-leading order QCD corrections to the production of three jets at hadron colliders in the leading-color approximation.

Two-loop doubly massive four-point amplitude involving a half-BPS and Konishi operator

The two-loop four-point amplitude of two massless SU(N) colored scalars and two color singlet operators with different virtuality described by a half-BPS and Konishi operators is calculated analytically in maximally supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory. We verify the ultraviolet behaviour of the unprotected composite operator and exponentiation of the infrared divergences with correct universal values of the anomalous dimensions in the modified dimensional reduction scheme. The amplitude is found to contain lower transcendental weight terms in addition to the highest ones and the latter has no similarity with similar amplitudes in QCD.

Off-shell gluon amplitudes in QCD

In this contribution we discuss off-shell gluon amplitudes from worldline formalism perspective. We use the Bern-Kosower master formula and two IBP methods to extract the form factor of the off-shell three-and four-gluon vertices. For the four-gluon case we also discus its representation in = 4 SYM.

One-loop weak corrections to Higgs production

We compute mixed QCD-weak corrections to inclusive Higgs production at the LHC from the partonic process ggto Hqoverline{q} . We start from the UV- and IR-finite oneloop weak amplitude and consider its interference with the corresponding one-loop QCD amplitude. This contribution is a mathcal{O}left({alpha}_salpha right) correction to the leading-order gluon-fusion cross section, and was not numerically assessed in previous works. We also compute the cross section from the square of this weak amplitude, suppressed by mathcal{O}left({alpha}^2right) . Finally, we consider contributions from the partonic process gq → Hq, which are one order lower in αs, as a reference for the size of terms which are not enhanced by the large gluon luminosity. We find that, given the magnitude of the uncertainties on current state-of-the-art predictions for Higgs production, all contributions computed in this work can be safely ignored, both fully inclusively and in the boosted Higgs regime. This result supports the approximate factorisation of QCD and weak corrections to that process.

Two-loop five-point massless QCD amplitudes within the integration-by-parts approach

We solve the integration-by-parts (IBP) identities needed for the computation of any planar two-loop five-point massless amplitude in QCD. We also derive some new results for the most complicated non-planar topology with irreducible numerators of power as high as six. We do this by applying a new strategy for solving the IBP identities which scales better for problems with a large number of scales and/or master integrals. Our results are a proof of principle that the remaining non-planar contributions for all two-loop five-point massless QCD amplitudes can be computed in analytic form.

Analytic Form of Planar Two-Loop Five-Gluon Scattering Amplitudes in QCD.

We present the analytic form of the planar two-loop five-gluon scattering amplitudes in QCD for a complete set of independent helicity configurations of external gluons. These include the first analytic results for five-point two-loop amplitudes relevant for the computation of next-to-next-to-leading-order QCD corrections at hadron colliders. The results were obtained by reconstructing analytic expressions from numerical evaluations. The complexity of the computation is reduced by exploiting physical and analytical properties of the amplitudes, employing a minimal basis of so-called pentagon functions that have recently been classified.

Three-Reggeon cuts in QCD amplitudes

One of remarkable properties of QCD is the gluon Reggeization. The Reggeized gluon is the primary Reggeon in QCD; Pomeron and Odderon appear as compound states of the Reggeized gluons. Due to negative signature the Reggeized gluon gives the main contributions to high energy QCD amplitudes in each order ofperturbation theory. In the leading and next-to-leading logarithmic approximations these amplitudes aregiven by the Regge pole contributions. In the next-to-next-to-leading approximation the pole form of the amplitudes is violated by contributions of three-Reggeon cuts. We discuss these contributions to elastic QCD amplitudes.

Phenomenology of relativistic mathbf {3}rightarrow mathbf {3} reaction amplitudes within the isobar approximation

Further progress in hadron spectroscopy necessitates the phenomenological description of three particle reactions. We consider the isobar approximation, where the connected part of the mathbf {3}rightarrow mathbf {3} amplitude is first expressed as a sum over initial and final pairs, and then expanded into a truncated partial wave series. The resulting unitarity equation is automatically fulfilled by the B-matrix solution, which is an integral equation for the partial wave amplitudes, analogous to the K-matrix parameterization used to describe mathbf {2}rightarrow mathbf {2} amplitudes. We study the one particle exchange and how its analytic structure impacts rescattering solutions such as the triangle diagram. The analytic structure is compared to other parameterizations discussed in the literature. We briefly discuss the analogies with recent formalisms for extracting mathbf {3}rightarrow mathbf {3} scattering amplitudes in lattice QCD.

Differential equations from unitarity cuts: nonplanar hexa-box integrals

We compute ϵ-factorized differential equations for all dimensionally-regularized integrals of the nonplanar hexa-box topology, which contribute for instance to 2-loop 5-point QCD amplitudes. A full set of pure integrals is presented. For 5-point planar topologies, Gram determinants which vanish in 4 dimensions are used to build compact expressions for pure integrals. Using unitarity cuts and computational algebraic geometry, we obtain a compact IBP system which can be solved in 8 hours on a single CPU core, overcoming a major bottleneck for deriving the differential equations. Alternatively, assuming prior knowledge of the alphabet of the nonplanar hexa-box, we reconstruct analytic differential equations from 30 numerical phase-space points, making the computation almost trivial with current techniques. We solve the differential equations to obtain the values of the master integrals at the symbol level. Full results for the differential equations and solutions are included as supplementary material.

Tr(F3) supersymmetric form factors and maximal transcendentality. Part II. 0 < mathcal{N} < 4 super Yang-Mills

The study of form factors has many phenomenologically interesting applications, one of which is Higgs plus gluon amplitudes in QCD. Through effective field theory techniques these are related to form factors of various operators of increasing classical dimension. In this paper we extend our analysis of the first finite top-mass correction, arising from the operator Tr(F3), from mathcal{N} = 4 super Yang-Mills to theories with mathcal{N} < 4, for the case of three gluons and up to two loops. We confirm our earlier result that the maximally transcendental part of the associated Catani remainder is universal and equal to that of the form factor of a protected trilinear operator in the maximally supersymmetric theory. The terms with lower transcendentality deviate from the mathcal{N} = 4 answer by a surprisingly small set of terms involving for example ζ2, ζ3 and simple powers of logarithms, for which we provide explicit expressions.

Tr(F3) supersymmetric form factors and maximal transcendentality. Part I. mathcal{N} = 4 super Yang-Mills

In the large top-mass limit, Higgs plus multi-gluon amplitudes in QCD can be computed using an effective field theory. This approach turns the computation of such amplitudes into that of form factors of operators of increasing classical dimension. In this paper we focus on the first finite top-mass correction, arising from the operator Tr(F3), up to two loops and three gluons. Setting up the calculation in the maximally supersymmetric theory requires identification of an appropriate supersymmetric completion of Tr(F3), which we recognise as a descendant of the Konishi operator. We provide detailed computations for both this operator and the component operator Tr(F3), preparing the ground for the calculation in mathcal{N} < 4, to be detailed in a companion paper. Our results for both operators are expressed in terms of a few universal functions of transcendental degree four and below, some of which have appeared in other contexts, hinting at universality of such quantities. An important feature of the result is a delicate cancellation of unphysical poles appearing in soft/collinear limits of the remainders which links terms of different transcendentality. Our calculation provides another example of the principle of maximal transcendentality for observables with non-trivial kinematic dependence.

Planar two-loop five-parton amplitudes from numerical unitarity

We compute a complete set of independent leading-color two-loop five-parton amplitudes in QCD. These constitute a fundamental ingredient for the next-to-next-to-leading order QCD corrections to three-jet production at hadron colliders. We show how to consistently consider helicity amplitudes with external fermions in dimensional regularization, allowing the application of a numerical variant of the unitarity method. Amplitudes are computed by exploiting a decomposition of the integrand into master and surface terms that is independent of the parton type. Master integral coefficients are numerically computed in either finite-field or floating-point arithmetic and combined with known analytic master integrals. We recompute leading-color two-loop four-parton amplitudes as a check of our implementation. Results are presented for all independent four- and five-parton processes including contributions with massless closed fermion loops.

Higgs boson production at large transverse momentum within the SMEFT: analytical results

We consider Higgs boson production through gluon fusion at large transverse momentum in hadronic collisions. We present the analytic expressions of the relevant one-loop QCD amplitudes including the effects of the complete set of dimension-six operators. The latter correspond to modifications of the top and bottom Yukawa couplings, to an effective point-like Higgs coupling to gluons and to the chromomagnetic operator of the top quark. The quantitative impact of the chromomagnetic operator is also studied. Our results confirm previous findings that the effect of the chromomagnetic operator at high p_T can be large and should not be neglected.

Probing transition form factors in the rare B→K*νν¯ decay

We compare the Standard Model (SM) predictions for the differential branching ratio of the rare $B\to K^*\nu\bar\nu$ decays using $B \to K^*$ form factors obtained from holographic light-front QCD (hLFQCD) and Sum Rules (SR) Distribution Amplitudes. For the total branching ratio, we predict $\mathcal{BR}(\process)_{\rm hLFQCD}=(6.36^{+0.59}_{-0.74})\times 10^{-6}$ and $\mathcal{BR}(\process)_{\rm SR}=(8.14^{+0.16}_{- 0.17})\times 10^{-6}$. More interestingly, we find that the two model predictions for the differential branching ratio are sufficiently different at low momentum transfer, so that future measurements at Belle II may be able to discriminate between them. We also confirm numerically that the $K^*$ longitudinal polarization fraction $F_L$ has little sensitivity to the non-perturbative form factors and is thus an excellent observable to probe New Physics signals. We predict $F_L=0.40^{+0.02}_{-0.01}(0.41\pm 0.01)$ using hLFQCD (SR).

New relations for graviton-matter amplitudes

We present new relations for scattering amplitudes of color ordered gluons, massive quarks and scalars minimally coupled to gravity. Tree-level amplitudes of arbitrary matter and gluon multiplicities involving one graviton are reduced to partial amplitudes in QCD or scalar QCD. The obtained relations are a direct generalization of the recently found Einstein-Yang-Mills relations. The proof of the new relation employs a simple diagrammatic argument trading the graviton-matter couplings to an `upgrade' of a gluon coupling with a color-kinematic replacement rule enforced. The use of the Melia-Johansson-Ochirov color basis is a key element of the reduction. We comment on the generalization to multiple gravitons in the single color trace case.

S-matrix and productions amplitudes in high energy QCD

In this note we discuss a generalization of the Lipatov's effective action approach, [1,2], for the case of description of gluon and quark production amplitudes in the quasi-multi-Regge kinematics. Following to [3], we define the S-matrix elements of high energy QCD processes in this kinematics and discuss applications of the obtained results.