We present a generalization of the symbol calculus from ordinary multiple polylogarithms to their elliptic counterparts. Our formalism is based on a special case of a coaction on large classes of periods that is applied in particular to elliptic polylogarithms and iterated integrals of modular forms. We illustrate how to use our formalism to derive relations among elliptic polylogarithms, in complete analogy with the non-elliptic case. We then analyze the symbol alphabet of elliptic polylogarithms evaluated at rational points, and we observe that it is given by Eisenstein series for a certain congruence subgroup. We apply our formalism to hypergeometric functions that can be expressed in terms of elliptic polylogarithms and show that they can equally be written in terms of iterated integrals of Eisenstein series. Finally, we present the symbol of the equal-mass sunrise integral in two space-time dimensions. The symbol alphabet involves Eisenstein series of level six and weight three, and we can easily integrate the symbol in terms of iterated integrals of Eisenstein series.

We propose a variant of elliptic multiple polylogarithms that have at most logarithmic singularities in all variables and satisfy a differential equation without homogeneous term. We investigate several non-trivial elliptic two-loop Feynman integrals with up to three external legs and express them in terms of our functions. We observe that in all cases they evaluate to pure combinations of elliptic multiple polylogarithms of uniform weight. This is the first time that a notion of uniform weight is observed in the context of Feynman integrals that evaluate to elliptic polylogarithms.

Abstract:We compute the n-point two-loop form factors of the half-BPS operators Tr(φ n AB ) in N = 4 super Yang-Mills for arbitrary n > 2 using generalised unitarity and symbols. These form factors are minimal in the sense that the n th power of the scalar field in the operator requires the presence of at least n on-shell legs. Infrared divergences are shown to exponentiate as for amplitudes, reproducing the known cusp and collinear anomalous dimensions at two loops. We define appropriate infrared-finite remainder functions and compute them analytically for all n. The results obtained by using the known expressions of the integral functions involve complicated combinations of Goncharov multiple polylogarithms, but we show that much simpler expressions can in fact be derived using the symbol of transcendental functions. For n = 3 we find a very compact remainder function expressed in terms of classical polylogarithms only. For arbitrary n > 3 we are able to write all the remainder functions in terms of a single compact building block, expressed as a sum of classical polylogarithms augmented by two multiple polylogarithms. The decomposition of the symbol into specific components is crucial in order to single out a natural combination of multiple polylogarithms. Finally, we analyse in detail the behaviour of these minimal form factors in collinear and soft limits, which deviates from the usual behaviour of amplitudes and non-minimal form factors.

Higgs plus multigluon amplitudes in QCD can be computed in an effective Lagrangian description. In the infinite top-mass limit, an amplitude with a Higgs boson and n gluons is computed by the form factor of the operator TrF^{2}. Up to two loops and for three gluons, its maximally transcendental part is captured entirely by the form factor of the protected stress tensor multiplet operator T_{2} in N=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory. The next order correction involves the calculation of the form factor of the higher-dimensional, trilinear operator TrF^{3}. We present explicit results at two loops for three gluons, including the subleading transcendental terms derived from a particular descendant of the Konishi operator that contains TrF^{3}. These are expressed in terms of a few universal building blocks already identified in earlier calculations. We show that the maximally transcendental part of this quantity, computed in nonsupersymmetric Yang-Mills theory, is identical to the form factor of another protected operator, T_{3}, in the maximally supersymmetric theory. Our results suggest that the maximally transcendental part of Higgs amplitudes in QCD can be entirely computed through N=4 super Yang-Mills theory.

Abstract:We compute form factors of half-BPS operators in N = 4 super Yang-Mills dual to massive Kaluza-Klein modes in supergravity. These are appropriate supersymmetrisations T k of the scalar operators Tr (φ k ) for any k, which for k = 2 give the chiral part of the stress-tensor multiplet operator. Using harmonic superspace, we derive simple Ward identities for these form factors, which we then compute perturbatively at tree level and one loop. We propose a novel on-shell recursion relation which links form factors with different numbers of fields. Using this, we conjecture a general formula for the n-point MHV form factors of T k for arbitrary k and n. Finally, we use supersymmetric generalised unitarity to derive compact expressions for all one-loop MHV form factors of T k in terms of one-loop triangles and finite two-mass easy box functions.