On-Shell Methods in QCD: First Digits for BlackHat David A. Kosower Institut de Physique Théorique, CEA–Saclay on behalf of the BlackHat Collaboration Carola Berger, Z. Bern, L. Dixon, Fernando Febres Cordero, Darren Forde, Harald Ita, DAK, Daniel Maître Workshop on Gauge Theory & String Theory, Zurich, Switzerland July 2–4, 2008

On-Shell Methods in QCD, Workshop on Gauge Theory & String Theory, Zurich, July 2–4, 2008 Why Compute QCD Processes? …need extensive knowledge of backgrounds August 11?

On-Shell Methods in QCD, Workshop on Gauge Theory & String Theory, Zurich, July 2–4, 2008 Why NLO? …need quantitative predictions CDF, PRD 77:  NLO  PS+LO matching W+2 jets

On-Shell Methods in QCD, Workshop on Gauge Theory & String Theory, Zurich, July 2–4, 2008 Calculations in Gauge Theories Explicit calculations are the only way to really learn something from experiment — or from theory Want NLO calculations of differential cross sections to understand LHC backgrounds quantitatively Higher-loop calculations desirable for precision observables and as error estimates Higher-loop calculations are playing an important role in developing our understanding of new structures in gauge and gravity theories  Zvi Bern, Lance Dixon, Anastasia Volovich’s talks

On-Shell Methods in QCD, Workshop on Gauge Theory & String Theory, Zurich, July 2–4, 2008 Ingredients for NLO Leading-order contributions: tree-level Real-emission contributions: tree-level with one more parton Virtual corrections: one-loop amplitude 2

On-Shell Methods in QCD, Workshop on Gauge Theory & String Theory, Zurich, July 2–4, 2008 One-Loop Amplitudes From the point of view of the final user – Accurate and reliable codes – Large number of processes – Rapid codes – Several suppliers, to cross-check results – Easy integration into existing tools (MCFM, S HERPA, A LPGEN, H ELAC P YTHIA,…) Interface standards? Independent testing & validation?, want

On-Shell Methods in QCD, Workshop on Gauge Theory & String Theory, Zurich, July 2–4, 2008     And life was good: Ellis and Sexton computed the four-parton processes at NLO, and Ellis, Kunszt, and Soper; and Giele, Glover and YT turned them into physics predictions for inclusive jet and two-jet distributions; But then, having eaten of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, physicists wanted more jets; and life was hard; The proliferation of diagrams blocked their progress; and new techniques had to be invented

On-Shell Methods in QCD, Workshop on Gauge Theory & String Theory, Zurich, July 2–4, 2008 Why Feynman Diagrams Won’t Get You There Huge number of diagrams in calculations of interest — factorial growth 2 → 6 jets: tree diagrams, ~ 2.5 ∙ 10 7 terms ~2.9 ∙ loop diagrams, ~ 1.9 ∙ terms But answers often turn out to be very simple Vertices and propagators involve gauge-variant off-shell states Each diagram is not gauge invariant — huge cancellations of gauge-noninvariant, redundant, parts in the sum over diagrams Simple results should have a simple derivation — Feynman (attr) Is there an approach in terms of physical states only?

On-Shell Methods in QCD, Workshop on Gauge Theory & String Theory, Zurich, July 2–4, 2008 New Technologies: On-Shell Methods Use only information from physical states Use properties of amplitudes as calculational tools – Factorization → on-shell recursion relations – Unitarity → unitarity method – Underlying field theory → integral basis Formalism Known integral basis: Unitarity On-shell Recursion

On-Shell Methods in QCD, Workshop on Gauge Theory & String Theory, Zurich, July 2–4, 2008 Unitarity: Prehistory General property of scattering amplitudes in field theories Understood in ’60s at the level of single diagrams in terms of Cutkosky rules – obtain absorptive part of a one-loop diagram by integrating tree diagrams over phase space – obtain dispersive part by doing a dispersion integral In principle, could be used as a tool for computing 2 → 2 processes No understanding – of how to do processes with more channels – of how to handle massless particles – of how to combine it with field theory: false gods of S -matrix theory

On-Shell Methods in QCD, Workshop on Gauge Theory & String Theory, Zurich, July 2–4, 2008 Unitarity as a Practical Tool Bern, Dixon, Dunbar, & DAK (1994) Compute cuts in a set of channels Compute required tree amplitudes Reconstruct corresponding Feynman integrals Perform algebra to identify coefficients of master integrals Assemble the answer, merging results from different channels

On-Shell Methods in QCD, Workshop on Gauge Theory & String Theory, Zurich, July 2–4, 2008 Generalized Unitarity Can sew together more than two tree amplitudes Corresponds to ‘leading singularities’ Isolates contributions of a smaller set of integrals: only integrals with propagators corresponding to cuts will show up Bern, Dixon, DAK (1997) Example: in triple cut, only boxes and triangles will contribute Combine with use of complex momenta to determine box coeffs directly in terms of tree amplitudes Britto, Cachazo, & Feng (2004) No integral reductions needed

On-Shell Methods in QCD, Workshop on Gauge Theory & String Theory, Zurich, July 2–4, 2008 Consider contour integral  Spurious singularities If there’s a surface term, use auxiliary recursion Rational Terms On-shell recursion Britto, Cachazo, Feng, & Witten; Bern, Dixon, DAK (2005)

On-Shell Methods in QCD, Workshop on Gauge Theory & String Theory, Zurich, July 2–4, 2008 Intelligent Automation To date: bespoke calculations Need industrialization  automation Easiest to do this numerically Numerical approach overall: worry about numerical stability Do analysis analytically Do algebra numerically Only the unitarity method combined with a numerically recursive approach for the cut trees can yield a polynomial-complexity calculation at loop level

On-Shell Methods in QCD, Workshop on Gauge Theory & String Theory, Zurich, July 2–4, 2008 Computational Complexity Basic object: color-ordered helicity amplitude Differential cross section needs sum over color orderings and helicities – Use phase-space symmetry to reduce sum over color orderings to polynomial number (or do sum by Monte Carlo) – Sum over helicities by Monte Carlo What is the complexity of a helicity amplitude? C exp n vs C n p – Asymptotically, only overall behavior really matters – We’re interested in moderate n – Brute-force calculations have huge prefactors as well as exp or worse behavior Want polynomial behavior – Purely analytic answers for generic helicities are exponential Require a (partly) numerical approach for maximal common- subexpression elimination, with analytic building blocks (e.g. ∫s)

On-Shell Methods in QCD, Workshop on Gauge Theory & String Theory, Zurich, July 2–4, 2008 Berends–Giele Recursion Relations J 5 appearing inside J 10 is identical to J 5 appearing inside J 17 Compute once numerically  maximal reuse  Polynomial complexity per helicity Recursion with caching

On-Shell Methods in QCD, Workshop on Gauge Theory & String Theory, Zurich, July 2–4, 2008 What’s New? Completed groundwork for practical technology Completed analytic calculations proving those technologies Many new ideas, complementary lines of attack within the unitarity framework: Ossola, Papadopoulos, Pittau Ellis, Giele, Kunszt, Melnikov, Zanderighi Anastasiou, Britto, Feng, Mastrolia Internal masses: Britto, Feng, Mastrolia; Ellis, Giele, Kunszt, Melnikov; Badger Framework for automated numerical calculations

On-Shell Methods in QCD, Workshop on Gauge Theory & String Theory, Zurich, July 2–4, 2008 BlackHat Carola Berger (MIT), Z. Bern, L. Dixon, Fernando Febres Cordero (UCLA), Darren Forde (SLAC), Harald Ita (UCLA), DAK, Daniel Maître (SLAC→Durham) Written in C++ Framework for automated one-loop calculations – Organization in terms of integral basis (boxes, triangles, bubbles) – Assembly of different contributions Library of functions ( spinor products, integrals, residue extraction ) Tree amplitudes ( ingredients ) Caching Thus far: implemented gluon amplitudes

On-Shell Methods in QCD, Workshop on Gauge Theory & String Theory, Zurich, July 2–4, 2008 Outline of a Calculation Cuts – Boxes: unitarity freezes all propagators in box integrals. Coefficients are given by a product of tree amplitudes with complex momenta ( Britto, Cachazo, Feng ), Compute them numerically – Triangles: unitarity leaves one degree of freedom in triangle integrals. Coefficients are the residues at  ( Forde ). Compute numerically using discrete Fourier projection after subtracting boxes ( Ossola, Papadopoulos, Pittau ) to ‘clean up’ complex plane Cut + Rational

On-Shell Methods in QCD, Workshop on Gauge Theory & String Theory, Zurich, July 2–4, 2008 Analytic Isolation Define massless momenta where Parametrize del Aguila, Ossola, Papadopoulos, Pittau (2006); Forde (2007) ← l 1

On-Shell Methods in QCD, Workshop on Gauge Theory & String Theory, Zurich, July 2–4, 2008 Forde (2007) t is remaining unfrozen degree of freedom Each box corresponds to a pole in t Triangle has no poles at finite t, only higher-order poles at 0 and  Integrals of powers of t vanish (‘total derivatives’) Constant term gives triangle coefficient: take large- t expansion of product of trees, then set t = 0

On-Shell Methods in QCD, Workshop on Gauge Theory & String Theory, Zurich, July 2–4, 2008 Or use a contour integral Evaluate it using a discrete Fourier projection (exact! p=3 )

On-Shell Methods in QCD, Workshop on Gauge Theory & String Theory, Zurich, July 2–4, 2008 Outline of a Calculation Cuts – Bubbles: unitarity leaves two degrees of freedom. Use two- dimensional discrete projection, after subtractions – Integrals: known analytically

On-Shell Methods in QCD, Workshop on Gauge Theory & String Theory, Zurich, July 2–4, 2008 Outline of a Calculation Rational Physical Poles: Recursive Terms

On-Shell Methods in QCD, Workshop on Gauge Theory & String Theory, Zurich, July 2–4, 2008 Outline of a Calculation Rational Spurious Poles Spurious poles correspond to zeros of Gram determinants which in turn lead to cut momenta diverging Need only rational parts  need to expand integral functions (logs, polylogs). Do this analytically: e.g. for 3-mass tri as Δ 3 → 0, Evaluate spurious residue numerically (using discretized contour ∫)

On-Shell Methods in QCD, Workshop on Gauge Theory & String Theory, Zurich, July 2–4, 2008 Numerical Stability Usually ordinary double precision is sufficient for stability Detect instabilities dynamically, event by event Check correctness of 1/ ε coefficient Check cancellation of spurious singularities in bubble coefficients For exceptional points (1-2%), use quad precision

On-Shell Methods in QCD, Workshop on Gauge Theory & String Theory, Zurich, July 2–4, 2008 Numerics and Examples Check MHV amplitudes (− −++…+), against all- n analytic expressions Check other six-point amplitudes against high-precision values Six-point amplitudes: 8–80 ms/point/helicity, ~600 ms/point total

On-Shell Methods in QCD, Workshop on Gauge Theory & String Theory, Zurich, July 2–4, 2008 The Party’s Not Over General automated packages Refinement of techniques within the unitarity method Exploiting analytic structure of integrands: – Ossola–Papadopoulos–Pittau subtraction of higher-point integrands – Forde: use analytic behavior (pole at infinity) to extract coefficient Refinement of techniques for computing rational terms – On-shell recursion – Giele–Kunszt–Melnikov use of different integer dimensions to effect D - dimensional unitarity – Trade D -dimensional unitarity for variable mass, combine with analytic parametrization (Badger)

On-Shell Methods in QCD, Workshop on Gauge Theory & String Theory, Zurich, July 2–4, 2008 Direct Rational Contributions Badger, arXiv:0806:4600 (appeared this week) Replace D-dimensional components of gluon by massive scalar, integrate over scalar’s mass (  Britto & Feng’s talks) Careful parametrization of loop momentum isolates rational coefficient as high-power behavior of integrand in the scalar mass, or via pole at 

On-Shell Methods in QCD, Workshop on Gauge Theory & String Theory, Zurich, July 2–4, 2008

Summary On-shell methods are method of choice for QCD calculations for colliders First light for automated one-loop calculations