Exposing the threshold structure of loop integrals

Abstract

The understanding of the physical laws determining the infrared behaviour of amplitudes is a longstanding and topical problem. In this paper, we show that energy conservation alone implies strong constraints on the threshold singularity structure of Feynman diagrams. In particular, we show that it implies a representation of loop integrals in terms of Fourier transforms of non-simplicial convex cones. We then engineer a triangulation that has a direct diagrammatic interpretation in terms of a straightforward edge-contraction operation. We use it to develop an algorithmic procedure that performs the Fourier integrations in closed form, yielding the novel Cross-Free Family three-dimensional representation of loop integrals. Contrary to the TOPT and LTD representations, its singularity structure is entirely and elegantly expressed in terms of the graph-theoretic notions of connectedness and crossing. These results can be used to classify infrared-finite scattering theories, numerically evaluate loop integrals and to simplify threshold regularisation procedures.