Engineering topics
Publications and source records attributed to Bourjaily, Jacob L..
We show that a master integrand basis exists for all planar, two-loop amplitudes in massless four-dimensional theories which is fully stratified by rigidity — with each integrand being either pure and strictly polylogarithmic or (pure and) strictly elliptic-polylogarithmic, with each of the later involving a single elliptic curve. Such integrands can be said to have definite rigidity.
We outline the concrete steps involved in building prescriptive master integrand bases for scattering amplitudes beyond the planar limit. We highlight the role of contour choices in such bases, and illustrate the full process by constructing a complete, triangle power-counting basis at two loops for six particles. We show how collinear contour choices can be used to divide integrand bases into separately finite and divergent subspaces, and how double-poles can be used to further subdivide these spaces according to (transcendental) weight. Complete details of the basis constructed for six particles is provided in the supplementary material.
We construct a prescriptive, bubble power-counting basis of one-loop integrands suitable for representing amplitude integrands in less-supersymmetric (1 ≤ $\mathcal{N}$ ≤ 4) Yang-Mills theory. With the exception of massless bubbles, all integrands have unambiguous, leading singularities as coefficients defined in field theory; for the massless bubbles on external legs, we find two natural choices which lead to different integrands that highlight distinct aspects of field theory. For concreteness, we give the all-multiplicity integrands for MHV amplitudes, and the split-helicity amplitude integrand for six-particle NMHV. The basis we construct is mostly pure and is divided into to separately UV- and IR-finite sectors of fixed transcendental weight, resulting in UV- and IR-finite ratio functions of n-particle helicity amplitudes.