arXiv subjects

Dmitry Chicherin

Publications and source records attributed to Dmitry Chicherin.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Bootstrapping two-loop six-gluon amplitudes in QCD

The maximally transcendental, or most complicated, terms of gauge-theory scattering amplitudes have long been singled out, following Lipatov and collaborators, as those parts of a QCD amplitude that most closely mirror maximally supersymmetric Yang--Mills theory. We report on a programme that turns this observation into a practical computational tool. We show that the rational prefactors multiplying the highest-weight special functions of planar QCD amplitudes are governed by four-dimensional leading singularities, which can be classified and evaluated using on-shell diagrams. The resulting prefactors are manifestly conformally invariant and admit compact spinor-helicity expressions that hold for arbitrary multiplicity. Combining this input with the recently established two-loop six-particle function space, we set up a symbol bootstrap and determine, for the first time, the maximal-weight symbol of the planar two-loop six-gluon amplitude in massless QCD, first for the ${-}{-}{+}{+}{+}{+}$ helicity configuration and subsequently for all MHV configurations. The answer is fixed uniquely by physical consistency conditions, requires a reduced alphabet of only $137$ symbol letters, and yields as a byproduct previously unknown two-loop triple-collinear and double-soft splitting functions. We summarise the method and the results, and outline the directions they open up.

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arXiv2026

The Four-Jet Rate in Electron-Positron Annihilation at Order $\alpha_s^4$

We compute for the first time the production rate for four jets in electron-positron annihilation at next-to-next-to-leading order. Our calculation exhibits the highest final-state jet multiplicity considered at this perturbative accuracy to date. The cancellation of infrared singularities is achieved in the antenna subtraction scheme, relying particularly on generalized antenna functions. The evaluation of the two-loop virtual corrections is enabled by the construction of a new basis of transcendental special functions tailored to four-particle decay kinematics. Our results are compared with LEP data, finding improved agreement with respect to the next-to-leading order calculation. In the region where perturbative predictions are most reliable, we observe a significant reduction of theory uncertainties, which now fall below the experimental ones.

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arXiv2026

QCD Scattering Amplitudes and Prescriptive Unitarity

We present a systematic framework for the maximally-transcendental part of planar QCD scattering amplitudes and perform the first bootstrap computation of six-gluon MHV amplitudes in massless QCD at the symbol level. By analyzing the maximal weight projection of amplitudes at the integrand level, we relate their maximally-transcendental parts to prescriptive unitarity integrals. This reveals a novel analytic structure: the prefactors multiplying the functions of maximal transcendentality are identified with the four-dimensional leading singularities of the theory. As a consequence, these prefactors admit a complete classification and can be computed using on-shell diagrams, a formalism originally developed in $\mathcal{N}{=}4$ super Yang-Mills theory. As a concrete application, we determine the two-loop prefactors for planar MHV gluon amplitudes at arbitrary multiplicity. Combining these prefactors with recent advances in the planar two-loop six-point function space and explicit six-point prescriptive-unitarity input, we construct a complete symbol ansatz and uniquely fix the maximally-transcendental part of the two-loop six-gluon MHV QCD amplitudes by imposing physical constraints. The resulting symbols are expressible in a reduced 137-letter alphabet, suggesting that this alphabet is complete for two-loop six-point massless MHV scattering. We also discuss the implications for multi-collinear splitting and multi-soft functions.

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arXiv2025

Energy correlators in four-dimensional gravity

We investigate energy correlators in four-dimensional gravitational theories, which provide a simple class of infrared-finite observables. We compute the one- and two-point energy correlators at one loop in $\mathcal{N}=8$ supergravity and in pure Einstein gravity, with particular emphasis on the contact terms arising from the interplay between virtual corrections and real emissions. We explicitly demonstrate the cancellation of infrared divergences and verify the Ward identities associated with energy-momentum conservation. In the back-to-back limit, we derive an all-order expression for the energy-energy correlator, showing that it is governed by universal soft-graviton dynamics. We further introduce a particularly simple beam-averaged energy-energy correlator and compute it in different gravitational theories, including tree-level string theory. The resulting correlators exhibit analyticity and polynomial boundedness, allowing for the formulation of dispersion relations, which we explore. Finally, we discuss additional singularities of the gravitational energy correlators, absent in QCD, that originate from the long-range nature of the gravitational interactions.

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arXiv2025

Complete computation of all three-loop five-point massless planar integrals

We calculate all three-loop, five-point, massless planar Feynman integral families in the dimensional regularization scheme. This is a new milestone in Feynman integral computations. The analysis covers four distinct families of Feynman integrals for this configuration, for all of which we derive the canonical differential equations. Our results also confirm a prediction on the three-loop five-point alphabet. The boundary values are analytically determined. Using these differential equations, the integrals can be evaluated to high precision efficiently. Our work establishes the foundation for next-to-next-to-next-to-leading-order (N$^3$LO) calculation of the production of three massless final states, as well as corresponding bootstrap studies in gauge theories.

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arXiv2025

Three-loop pentagonal Wilson loop with Lagrangian insertion

Employing a cutting-edge bootstrap method, we analytically compute the three-loop pentagonal Wilson loop with Lagrangian insertion in planar $\mathcal{N}=4$ super-Yang-Mills theory. This object is conjectured to coincide with the maximally transcendental part of the four-loop five-point all-plus amplitude in pure Yang-Mills theory. Our starting point is an ansatz that encodes the known leading singularities of this object, as well as the relevant function space. The latter has become available only recently, thanks to an analytic computation of all three-loop five-point planar massless Feynman integrals. We determine the coefficients in the ansatz by imposing physical constraints. This includes a near-collinear expansion, which so far has not been applied to this observable. Taken together, the constraints allow us to uniquely determine the symbol of the answer. We verify the symbol result by an independent integral reduction calculation.

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arXiv2025

Bootstrapping Six-Gluon QCD Amplitudes

We present a symbol-level bootstrap construction of the planar, two-loop six-gluon scattering amplitude for the --++++ helicity configuration in QCD, focusing on the maximal weight pieces-the "most complicated terms" in the sense of Lipatov et al. Building on recent advances in the understanding of the relevant function space, we incorporate as a crucial new ingredient the complete set of leading singularities, obtained from an explicit analysis of on-shell diagrams. The resulting expressions are manifestly conformally invariant and clarify the structure of previous five-particle results. Combining this with the symbol bootstrap, we show that constraints from physical limits are sufficient to uniquely determine the answer. We thus obtain the first concrete characterization of two-loop six-gluon amplitudes at the symbol level and at highest weight. Remarkably, we find that the effective function space involves only 137 symbol letters, significantly fewer than the full set of 167 possible letters, suggesting a yet-unexplained underlying structure akin to that seen in maximally supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory. From the novel amplitude results we extract previously unknown symbol-level results describing two-loop triple collinear and double soft limits.

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arXiv2025

Geometric Landau Analysis and Symbol Bootstrap

We investigate how the positive geometry framework for loop integrands in $\mathcal{N}{=}4$ super Yang-Mills theory constrains the structure of the integrated answers. This is done in the context of a geometric expansion of Wilson loops with a Lagrangian insertion, called negative geometries, extending ideas previously used for scattering amplitudes related to the Amplituhedron. The procedure we adopt combines the knowledge of all maximal codimension boundaries of the geometry, which characterize all possible leading singularities of the integral, with a geometrically informed Landau analysis. The interplay between geometry and Landau analysis arises from associating Landau diagrams to geometric boundaries. The boundary structure of the geometry then determines which solutions to the Landau equations are spurious and which ones are physical, that is, which singularities are actually present in the integral. This method allows us to efficiently determine the symbol alphabet of the associated integral, and serves as a starting point for the symbol bootstrap. We successfully implement this procedure and compute the six-point two-loop and five-point three-loop ladder negative geometries at the symbol level. We also present the conjectural alphabet for ladder negative geometries at two loops for all multiplicities. These are finite integrals that serve as building blocks for the Wilson loop with Lagrangian insertion, and therefore provide insights into the function space of the latter.

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arXiv2025

Hexagonal Wilson loop with Lagrangian insertion at two loops in $\mathcal{N}=4$ super Yang-Mills theory

In this work, we compute the two-loop result of the null hexagonal Wilson loop with a Lagrangian insertion in planar, maximally supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory via a bootstrap approach. Normalized by the null polygonal Wilson loop itself, the integrand-level result of this observable corresponds to the logarithm of the six-point three-loop amplitude in this theory, while its integrated result is conjectured to match the maximal transcendental part of the six-point three-loop all-plus amplitude in pure Yang-Mills theory. Our work builds on two recent advances. On the one hand, the set of leading singularities relevant to this observable was recently classified. On the other hand, the relevant space of special functions that may in principle accompany these leading singularities was determined at two loops and for six particles by a dedicated Feynman integral calculation. These two ingredients serve as the foundation of our bootstrap ansatz. We fix all indeterminates in this ansatz by imposing physical constraints, such as symmetries, absence of spurious divergences, and correct behavior in soft and collinear limits. Finally, we discuss and verify certain physical properties of our symbol result, including physical singularities, behavior under multi-Regge limit, as well as Steinmann relations between symbol entries. The latter relations are motivated by the correspondence to all-plus amplitudes in pure Yang-Mills theory, and successfully checking them constitutes a consistency check of this conjectured correspondence.

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arXiv2024

Positivity properties of five-point two-loop Wilson loops with Lagrangian insertion

In this paper we discuss the geometric integrand expansion of the five-point Wilson loop with one Lagrangian insertion in maximally supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory. We construct the integrand corresponding to an all-loop class of ladder-type geometries. We then investigate the known two-loop observable from this geometric viewpoint. To do so, we evaluate analytically the new two-loop integrals corresponding to the negative geometry contribution, using the canonical differential equations method. Inspecting the analytic result, we present numerical evidence that in this decomposition, each piece has uniform sign properties, when evaluated in the Amplituhedron region. Finally, we present an alternative bootstrap approach for the ladder-type geometries. We find that certain minimal bootstrap assumptions can be satisfied at two loops, but lead to a contradiction at three loops. This suggests to us that novel alphabet letters are required at this loop order. Indeed studying planar three-loop Feynman integrals, we do identify novel pentagon alphabet letters.

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arXiv2024

Two-Loop Five-Point Two-Mass Planar Integrals and Double Lagrangian Insertions in a Wilson Loop

We consider the complete set of planar two-loop five-point Feynman integrals with two off-shell external legs. These integrals are relevant, for instance, for the calculation of the second-order QCD corrections to the production of two heavy vector bosons in association with a jet or a photon at a hadron collider. We construct pure bases for these integrals and reconstruct their analytic differential equations in canonical form through numerical sampling over finite fields. The newly identified symbol alphabet, one of the most complex to date, provides valuable data for bootstrap methods. We then apply our results to initiate the study of double Lagrangian insertions in a four-cusp Wilson loop in planar maximally supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory, computing it through two loops. We observe that it is finite, conformally invariant in four dimensions, and of uniform transcendentality. Furthermore, we provide numerical evidence for its positivity within the amplituhedron region through two loops.

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arXiv2024

All Two-Loop Feynman Integrals for Five-Point One-Mass Scattering

We compute the complete set of two-loop master integrals for the scattering of four massless particles and a massive one. Our results are ready for phenomenological applications, removing a major obstacle to the computation of complete next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) QCD corrections to processes such as the production of a $H/Z/W$ boson in association with two jets at the LHC. Furthermore, they open the door to new investigations into the structure of quantum-field theories and provide precious analytic data for studying the mathematical properties of Feynman integrals.

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arXiv2024

The Collinear Limit of the Four-Point Energy Correlator in $\mathcal{N} = 4$ Super Yang-Mills Theory

We present a compact formula, expressed in terms of classical polylogarithms up to weight three, for the leading order four-point energy correlator in maximally supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory, in the limit where the four detectors are collinear. This formula is derived by combining a simplified, manifestly dual conformal invariant form of the 1 -> 4 splitting function obtained from the square of the tree-level five-particle form factor of stress-tensor multiplet operators, with a novel integration-by-parts algorithm operating directly on Feynman parameter integrals. Our results provide valuable data for exploring the structure of physical observables in perturbation theory, and for calculations of jet substructure observables in quantum chromodynamics.

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arXiv2023

Anomalous Ward identities for on-shell amplitudes at the conformal fixed point

Conformal symmetry underlies many massless quantum field theories, but little is known about the consequences of this powerful symmetry for on-shell scattering amplitudes. Working in a dimensionally-regularised $ϕ^3$ model at the conformal fixed point, we show that the on-shell renormalised amplitudes satisfy anomalous conformal Ward identities. Each external on-shell state contributes two terms to the anomaly. The first term is proportional to the elementary field anomalous dimension, and thus involves only lower-loop information. We show that the second term can be given as the convolution of a universal collinear function and lower-order amplitudes. The computation of the conformal anomaly is therefore simpler than that of the amplitude at the same perturbative order, which gives our anomalous conformal Ward identities a strong predictive power in perturbation theory. Finally, we show that our result is also of practical importance for dimensionally-regularised amplitudes away from the conformal fixed point.

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arXiv2023

The SAGEX Review on Scattering Amplitudes

This is an introduction to, and invitation to read, a series of review articles on scattering amplitudes in gauge theory, gravity, and superstring theory. Our aim is to provide an overview of the field, from basic aspects to a selection of current (2022) research and developments.

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arXiv2022

Pentagon Wilson loop with Lagrangian insertion at two loops in ${\mathcal N}=4$ super Yang-Mills theory

We compute the two-loop result for the null pentagonal Wilson loop with a Lagrangian insertion (normalized by the Wilson loop without insertion) in planar, maximally supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory. This finite observable is closely related to the Amplituhedron, and it is reminiscent of finite parts of planar two-loop five-particle scattering amplitudes. We verify that, up to this loop order, the leading singularities are given by the same conformally invariant expressions that appear in all-plus pure Yang-Mills amplitudes. The accompanying weight-four transcendental functions are expressed in terms of the pentagon functions space known from planar two-loop five-particle amplitudes, but interestingly only a subset of the functions appears. Being a function of four dimensionless variables, the observable has interesting asymptotic limits. We verify that our analytic result is consistent with soft and collinear limits, and find an intriguingly simple pattern in the multi-Regge limit. Thanks to the new result we can also conjecturally predict, for general kinematics, the maximal weight piece of the planar three-loop five-particle all-plus amplitude in pure Yang-Mills theory. Motivated by the Amplituhedron geometry, we investigate positivity properties of the integrated answer. Generalizing previous results at four particles, we find numerical evidence that the two-loop five-particle result has uniform sign in a kinematic region suggested by the loop Amplituhedron.

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arXiv2022

The SAGEX Review on Scattering Amplitudes, Chapter 9: Integrability of Amplitudes in Fishnet Theories

We discuss the properties of scattering amplitudes in a conformal bi-scalar fishnet theory that previously appeared in the study of integrable deformations of $\mathcal N=4$ SYM. In distinction with the latter theory, the scattering amplitudes in the conformal fishnet theory do not suffer from infrared divergences and possess enhanced symmetries. We demonstrate that for the simplest four-particle scattering the single- and double-trace partial amplitudes can be computed for arbitrary coupling in the leading color approximation. We also review the invariance of single-trace components of multi-particle fishnet amplitudes in the leading color limit under infinite-dimensional Yangian symmetry.

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arXiv2022

Symmetry properties of Wilson loops with a Lagrangian insertion

Null Wilson loops in $\mathcal{N}=4$ super Yang-Mills are dual to planar scattering amplitudes. This duality implies hidden symmetries for both objects. We consider closely related infrared finite observables, defined as the Wilson loop with a Lagrangian insertion, normalized by the Wilson loop itself. Unlike ratio and remainder functions studied in the literature, this observable is non-trivial already for four scattered particles and bears close resemblance to (finite parts of) scattering processes in non-supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory. We study the general structure of the Wilson loop with a Lagrangian insertion, focusing in particular on its leading singularities and their (hidden) symmetry properties. We find evidence that the leading singularities can be written as certain Grassmannian integrals. The latter are manifestly dual conformal. They also have a conformal symmetry, up to total derivatives. We find that, surprisingly, the conformal symmetry becomes an invariance in the frame where the Lagrangian insertion point is sent to infinity. Furthermore, we use integrability methods to study how higher Yangian charges act on the Grassmannian integral. We evaluate the $n$-particle observable both at tree- and at one-loop level, finding compact analytic formulas. These results are explicitly written in the form of conformal leading singularities, multiplied by transcendental functions. We then compare these formulas to known expressions for all-plus amplitudes in pure Yang-Mills theory. We find a remarkable new connection: the Wilson loop with Lagrangian insertion in $\mathcal{N}=4$ super Yang-Mills appears to predict the maximal weight terms of the planar pure Yang-Mills all-plus amplitude. We test this relationship for the two-loop $n$-point Yang-Mills amplitude, as well as for the three-loop four-point amplitude.

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