English

Single-valued integration and superstring amplitudes in genus zero

Number Theory 2023-02-23 v3 High Energy Physics - Theory Algebraic Geometry

Abstract

We study open and closed string amplitudes at tree-level in string perturbation theory using the methods of single-valued integration which were developed in the prequel to this paper. Using dihedral coordinates on the moduli spaces of curves of genus zero with marked points, we define a canonical regularisation of both open and closed string perturbation amplitudes at tree level, and deduce that they admit a Laurent expansion in Mandelstam variables whose coefficients are multiple zeta values (resp. single-valued multiple zeta values). Furthermore, we prove the existence of a motivic Laurent expansion whose image under the period map is the open string expansion, and whose image under the single-valued period map is the closed string expansion. This proves the recent conjecture of Stieberger that closed string amplitudes are the single-valued projections of (motivic lifts of) open string amplitudes. Finally, applying a variant of the single-valued formalism for cohomology with coefficients yields the KLT formula expressing closed string amplitudes as quadratic expressions in open string amplitudes.

Cite

@article{arxiv.1910.01107,
  title  = {Single-valued integration and superstring amplitudes in genus zero},
  author = {Francis Brown and Clément Dupont},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1910.01107},
  year   = {2023}
}

Comments

The results in this article formed the second half of the first version of arXiv:1810.07682, which was later split into two separate articles. The results are unchanged. We added 2 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-23T11:33:01.908Z