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Zeng, Mao

Publications and source records attributed to Zeng, Mao.

16 records
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2024

Amplitudes, supersymmetric black hole scattering at $\mathcal{O}\left({G}^5\right)$, and loop integration

We compute the potential-graviton contribution to the scattering amplitude, the radial action, and the scattering angle of two extremal black holes in $\mathcal{N}$ = 8 supergravity at the fifth post-Minkowskian order and to next-to-leading order in a large mass expansion (first self-force order). Properties of classical unitarity cuts allow us to focus on the integration-by-parts reduction of planar integrals, while nonplanar integrals at this order are obtained from the planar ones by straightforward manipulations. We present the solution to the differential equations for all master integrals necessary to evaluate the classical scattering amplitudes of massive scalar particles at this order in all gravitational theories, in particular in $\mathcal{N}$ = 8 supergravity, and in general relativity. Despite the appearance of higher-weight generalized polylogarithms and elliptic functions in the solution to the differential equation for master integrals, the final supergravity answer is remarkably simple and contains only (harmonic) polylogarithmic functions up to weight 2. The systematic analysis of elliptic integrals discussed here, as well as the particular organization of boundary integrals in $\mathcal{N}$ = 8 observables are independent of supersymmetry and may have wider applications, including to aspects of collider physics.

Black Holes↗
DOE OSTI2024

Conservative Binary Dynamics at Order 𝛼 5 in Electrodynamics

We compute the potential-photon contributions to the classical relativistic scattering angle of two charged nonspinning bodies in electrodynamics through fifth order in the coupling. We use the scattering amplitudes framework, effective field theory, and multiloop integration techniques based on integration by parts and differential equations. At fifth order, the result is expressed in terms of cyclotomic polylogarithms. Our calculation demonstrates the feasibility of the corresponding calculations in general relativity, including the evaluation of the encountered four-loop integrals.

classical electromagnetism↗
DOE OSTI2022

Scalar QED as a toy model for higher-order effects in classical gravitational scattering

Quantum Electrodynamics (QED) serves as a useful toy model for classical observables in gravitational two-body systems with reduced complexity due to the linearity of QED. We investigate scattering observables in scalar QED at the sixth order in the charges (two-loop order) in a classical regime analogous to the post-Minkowskian expansion in General Relativity. We employ modern scattering amplitude tools and extract classical observables by both eikonal methods and the formalism of Kosower, Maybee, and O’Connell (KMOC). In addition, we provide a simplified approach to extracting the radial action beyond the conservative sector.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2021

Radiative classical gravitational observables at $ \mathcal{O} $(G 3 ) from scattering amplitudes

We compute classical gravitational observables for the scattering of two spinless black holes in general relativity and N =8 supergravity in the formalism of Kosower, Maybee, and O’Connell (KMOC). We focus on the gravitational impulse with radiation reaction and the radiated momentum in black hole scattering at $ \mathcal{O} $(G 3 ) to all orders in the velocity. These classical observables require the construction and evaluation of certain loop-level quantities which are greatly simplified by harnessing recent advances from scattering amplitudes and collider physics. In particular, we make use of generalized unitarity to construct the relevant loop integrands, employ reverse unitarity, the method of regions, integration-by-parts (IBP), and (canonical) differential equations to simplify and evaluate all loop and phase-space integrals to obtain the classical gravitational observables of interest to two-loop order. The KMOC formalism naturally incorporates radiation effects which enables us to explore these classical quantities beyond the conservative two-body dynamics. From the impulse and the radiated momentum, we extract the scattering angle and the radiated energy. Finally, we discuss universality of the impulse in the high-energy limit and the relation to the eikonal phase.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2019

Black hole binary dynamics from the double copy and effective theory

We describe a systematic framework for computing the conservative potential of a compact binary system using modern tools from scattering amplitudes and effective field theory. Our approach combines methods for integration and matching adapted from effective field theory, generalized unitarity, and the double-copy construction, which relates gravity integrands to simpler gauge-theory expressions. With these methods we derive the third post-Minkowskian correction to the conservative two-body Hamiltonian for spinless black holes. We describe in some detail various checks of our integration methods and the resulting Hamiltonian.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2019

The two-loop five-point amplitude in $\mathcal{N}$ = 8 supergravity

We compute the symbol of the two-loop five-point amplitude in $\mathcal{N}$ = 8 supergravity. We write an ansatz for the amplitude whose rational prefactors are based on not only 4-dimensional leading singularities, but also d-dimensional ones, as the former are insufficient. Our novel d-dimensional unitarity-based approach to the systematic construction of an amplitude’s rational structures is likely to have broader applications, for example to analogous QCD calculations. We fix parameters in the ansatz by performing numerical integration-by-parts reduction of the known integrand. We find that the two-loop five-point $\mathcal{N}$ = 8 supergravity amplitude is uniformly transcendental. We then verify the soft and collinear limits of the amplitude. There is considerable similarity with the corresponding amplitude for $\mathcal{N}$ = 4 super-Yang-Mills theory: all the rational prefactors are double copies of the Yang-Mills ones and the transcendental functions overlap to a large degree. As a byproduct, we find new relations between color-ordered loop amplitudes in $\mathcal{N}$ = 4 super-Yang-Mills theory.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2019

Differential equations from unitarity cuts: nonplanar hexa-box integrals

We compute ϵ-factorized differential equations for all dimensionally-regularized integrals of the nonplanar hexa-box topology, which contribute for instance to 2-loop 5-point QCD amplitudes. A full set of pure integrals is presented. For 5-point planar topologies, Gram determinants which vanish in 4 dimensions are used to build compact expressions for pure integrals. Using unitarity cuts and computational algebraic geometry, we obtain a compact IBP system which can be solved in 8 hours on a single CPU core, overcoming a major bottleneck for deriving the differential equations. Alternatively, assuming prior knowledge of the alphabet of the nonplanar hexa-box, we reconstruct analytic differential equations from 30 numerical phase-space points, making the computation almost trivial with current techniques. We solve the differential equations to obtain the values of the master integrals at the symbol level. Full results for the differential equations and solutions are included as supplementary material.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗