Polylogarithms, Multiple Zeta Values and Superstring Amplitudes

A formalism is provided to calculate tree amplitudes in open superstring theory for any multiplicity at any order in the inverse string tension. We point out that the underlying world-sheet disk integrals share substantial properties with color-ordered tree amplitudes in Yang-Mills field theories. In particular, we closely relate world-sheet integrands of open-string tree amplitudes to the Kawai-Lewellen-Tye representation of supergravity amplitudes. This correspondence helps to reduce the singular parts of world-sheet disk integrals -including their string corrections- to lower-point results. The remaining regular parts are systematically addressed by polylogarithm manipulations.Comment: 79 pages, LaTeX; v2: final version to appear in Fortschritte der Physik; for additional material, see: http://mzv.mpp.mpg.d

Elliptic polylogarithms and iterated integrals on elliptic curves II: an application to the sunrise integral

We introduce a class of iterated integrals that generalize multiple polylogarithms to elliptic curves. These elliptic multiple polylogarithms are closely related to similar functions defined in pure math- ematics and string theory. We then focus on the equal-mass and non-equal-mass sunrise integrals, and we develop a formalism that enables us to compute these Feynman integrals in terms of our iterated integrals on elliptic curves. The key idea is to use integration-by-parts identities to identify a set of integral kernels, whose precise form is determined by the branch points of the integral in question. These kernels allow us to express all iterated integrals on an elliptic curve in terms of them. The flexibility of our approach leads us to expect that it will be applicable to a large variety of integrals in high-energy physics.Comment: 22 page

A dictionary between R-operators, on-shell graphs and Yangian algebras

We translate between different formulations of Yangian invariants relevant for the computation of tree-level scattering amplitudes in N=4 super-Yang--Mills theory. While the R-operator formulation allows to relate scattering amplitudes to structures well known from integrability, it can equally well be connected to the permutations encoded by on-shell graphs.Comment: 44 pages; replaced with published versio

All order alpha'-expansion of superstring trees from the Drinfeld associator

We derive a recursive formula for the alpha'-expansion of superstring tree amplitudes involving any number N of massless open string states. String corrections to Yang-Mills field theory are shown to enter through the Drinfeld associator, a generating series for multiple zeta values. Our results apply for any number of spacetime dimensions or supersymmetries and chosen helicity configurations.Comment: 6 pages, LaTeX; v2: Final version to appear in PR

A KLT-like construction for multi-Regge amplitudes

Inspired by the calculational steps originally performed by Kawai, Lewellen and Tye, we decompose scattering amplitudes with single-valued coefficients obtained in the multi-Regge-limit of N=4 super-Yang-Mills theory into products of scattering amplitudes with multi-valued coefficients. We consider the simplest non-trivial situation: the six-point remainder function complementing the Bern-Dixon-Smirnov ansatz for multi-loop amplitudes. Utilizing inverse Mellin transformations, all single-valued amplitude components can indeed be decomposed into multi-valued amplitude components. Although the final expression is very similar in structure to the Kawai-Lewellen-Tye construction, moving away from the highly symmetric string scenario comes with several imponderabilities, some of which become more pronounced when considering more than six external legs in the remainder function.Comment: 39 pages, 11 figures, 3 appendice