General gauge-Yukawa-quartic β-functions at 4-3-2-loop order

We determine the full set of coefficients for the completely general 4-loop gauge and 3-loop Yukawa β-functions for the most general renormalizable four-dimensional theories. Using a complete parametrization of the β-functions, we compare the general form to the specific β-functions of known theories to constrain the unknown coefficients. The Weyl consistency conditions provide additional constraints, completing the determination.

Large N external-field quantum electrodynamics

We advocate the study of external-field quantum electrodynamics with N charged particle flavors. Our main focus is on the Heisenberg-Euler effective action for this theory in the large N limit which receives contributions from all loop orders. The contributions beyond one loop stem from one-particle reducible diagrams. We show that specifically in constant electromagnetic fields the latter are generated by the one-loop Heisenberg-Euler effective Lagrangian. Hence, in this case the large N Heisenberg-Euler effective action can be determined explicitly at any desired loop order. We demonstrate that further analytical insights are possible for electric-and magnetic-like field configurations characterized by the vanishing of one of the secular invariants of the electromagnetic field and work out the all-orders strong field limit of the theory.

Boomerang webs up to three-loop order

Webs are sets of Feynman diagrams which manifest soft gluon exponentiation in gauge theory scattering amplitudes: individual webs contribute to the logarithm of the amplitude and their ultraviolet renormalization encodes its infrared structure. In this paper, we consider the particular class of boomerang webs, consisting of multiple gluon exchanges, but where at least one gluon has both of its endpoints on the same Wilson line. First, we use the replica trick to prove that diagrams involving self-energy insertions along the Wilson line do not contribute to the web, i.e. their exponentiated colour factor vanishes. Consequently boomerang webs effectively involve only integrals where boomerang gluons straddle one or more gluons that connect to other Wilson lines. Next we classify and calculate all boomerang webs involving semi-infinite non-lightlike Wilson lines up to three-loop order, including a detailed discussion of how to regulate and renormalize them. Furthermore, we show that they can be written using a basis of specific harmonic polylogarithms, that has been conjectured to be sufficient for expressing all multiple gluon exchange webs. However, boomerang webs differ from other gluon-exchange webs by featuring a lower and non-uniform transcendental weight. We cross-check our results by showing how certain boomerang webs can be determined by the so-called collinear reduction of previously calculated webs. Our results are a necessary ingredient of the soft anomalous dimension for non-lightlike Wilson lines at three loops.

Thermal Gauge Theories with Lagrange Multiplier Fields

We study the Yang-Mills theory and quantum gravity at finite temperature, in the presence of La-grange multiplier fields. These restrict the path integrals to field configurations which obey the classical equations of motion. This has the effect of doubling the usual one–loop thermal contributions and of suppressing all radiative corrections at higher loop order. Such theories are renormalizable at all temperatures. Some consequences of this result in quantum gravity are briefly examined.

The Electromagnetic Interactions

We briefly review the birth of renormalisation theory at the 1947 Shelter Island conference. We study the particular case of quantum electrodynamics in the example of an electron scattered by an external electromagnetic field. We give the general form of the amplitude in terms of form factors. At one loop the amplitude has both ultraviolet and infrared divergences. We show how to absorb the ultraviolet divergences by means of counterterms whose values are determined by the renormalisation conditions. We also show that at one loop order the electron anomalous magnetic moment is free of divergences, ultraviolet as well as infrared, and present its explicit calculation.

The diagrammatic coaction beyond one loop

The diagrammatic coaction maps any given Feynman graph into pairs of graphs and cut graphs such that, conjecturally, when these graphs are replaced by the corresponding Feynman integrals one obtains a coaction on the respective functions. The coaction on the functions is constructed by pairing a basis of differential forms, corresponding to master integrals, with a basis of integration contours, corresponding to independent cut integrals. At one loop, a general diagrammatic coaction was established using dimensional regularisation, which may be realised in terms of a global coaction on hypergeometric functions, or equivalently, order by order in the ϵ expansion, via a local coaction on multiple polylogarithms. The present paper takes the first steps in generalising the diagrammatic coaction beyond one loop. We first establish general properties that govern the diagrammatic coaction at any loop order. We then focus on examples of two-loop topologies for which all integrals expand into polylogarithms. In each case we determine bases of master integrals and cuts in terms of hypergeometric functions, and then use the global coaction to establish the diagrammatic coaction of all master integrals in the topology. The diagrammatic coaction encodes the complete set of discontinuities of Feynman integrals, as well as the differential equations they satisfy, providing a general tool to understand their physical and mathematical properties.

Radiative classical gravitational observables at $$ \mathcal{O} $$(G3) from scattering amplitudes

We compute classical gravitational observables for the scattering of two spinless black holes in general relativity and $$ \mathcal{N} $$ N =8 supergravity in the formalism of Kosower, Maybee, and O’Connell (KMOC). We focus on the gravitational impulse with radiation reaction and the radiated momentum in black hole scattering at $$ \mathcal{O} $$ O (G3) to all orders in the velocity. These classical observables require the construction and evaluation of certain loop-level quantities which are greatly simplified by harnessing recent advances from scattering amplitudes and collider physics. In particular, we make use of generalized unitarity to construct the relevant loop integrands, employ reverse unitarity, the method of regions, integration-by-parts (IBP), and (canonical) differential equations to simplify and evaluate all loop and phase-space integrals to obtain the classical gravitational observables of interest to two-loop order. The KMOC formalism naturally incorporates radiation effects which enables us to explore these classical quantities beyond the conservative two-body dynamics. From the impulse and the radiated momentum, we extract the scattering angle and the radiated energy. Finally, we discuss universality of the impulse in the high-energy limit and the relation to the eikonal phase.

Two-loop $$ \mathcal{O} $$((αt + αλ + ακ)2) corrections to the Higgs boson masses in the CP-violating NMSSM

We present our computation of the $$ \mathcal{O} $$ O ((αt + αλ + ακ)2) two-loop corrections to the Higgs boson masses of the CP-violating Next-to-Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (NMSSM) using the Feynman-diagrammatic approach in the gaugeless limit at vanishing external momentum. We choose a mixed $$ \overline{\mathrm{DR}} $$ DR ¯ -on-shell (OS) renormalisation scheme for the Higgs sector and apply both $$ \overline{\mathrm{DR}} $$ DR ¯ and OS renormalisation in the top/stop sector. For the treatment of the infrared divergences we apply and compare three different regularisation methods: the introduction of a regulator mass, the application of a small momentum expansion, and the inclusion of the full momentum dependence. Our new corrections have been implemented in the Fortran code NMSSMCALC that computes the Higgs mass spectrum of the CP-conserving and CP-violating NMSSM as well as the Higgs boson decays including the state-of-the-art higher-order corrections. Our numerical analysis shows that the newly computed corrections increase with rising λ and κ, remaining overall below about 3% compared to our previously computed $$ \mathcal{O} $$ O (αt(αt + αs)) corrections, in the region compatible with perturbativity below the GUT scale. The renormalisation scheme and scale dependence is of typical two-loop order. The impact of the CP-violating phases in the new corrections is small. We furthermore show that the Goldstone Boson Catastrophe due to the infrared divergences can be treated in a numerically efficient way by introducing a regulator mass that approximates the momentum-dependent results best for squared mass values in the permille range of the squared renormalisation scale. Our results mark another step forward in the program of increasing the precision in the NMSSM Higgs boson observables.

The two-sphere partition function in two-dimensional quantum gravity at fixed area

We discuss two-dimensional quantum gravity coupled to conformal matter and fixed area in a semiclassical large and negative matter central charge limit. In this setup the gravity theory — otherwise highly fluctuating — admits a round two-sphere saddle. We discuss the two-sphere partition function up to two-loop order from the path integral perspective. This amounts to studying Feynman diagrams incorporating the fixed area constraint on the round two-sphere. In particular we find that all ultraviolet divergences cancel to this order. We compare our results with the two-sphere partition function obtained from the DOZZ formula.