Abstract: The computation of multi-loop multi-leg scattering amplitudes plays a key role to improve the precision of theoretical predictions for particle physics at high-energy colliders. In this work, we focus on the mathematical properties of the novel integrand-level representation of Feynman integrals, which is based on the Loop-Tree Duality (LTD). We explore the behaviour of the multi-loop iterated residues and explicitly show, by developing a general compact and elegant proof, that contributions associated to displaced poles are cancelled out. The remaining residues, called nested residues as originally introduced in ref. [1], encode the relevant physical information and are naturally mapped onto physical configurations associated to nondisjoint on-shell states. By going further on the mathematical structure of the nested residues, we prove that unphysical singularities vanish, and show how the final expressions can be written by using only causal denominators. In this way, we provide a mathematical proof for the all-loop formulae presented in ref. [2].

Abstract: In dark-matter annihilation channels to hadronic final states, stable particles – such as positrons, photons, antiprotons, and antineutrinos – are produced via complex sequences of phenomena including QED/QCD radiation, hadronisation, and hadron decays. These processes are normally modelled by Monte Carlo (MC) event generators whose limited accuracy imply intrinsic QCD uncertainties on the predictions for indirect-detection experiments like Fermi-LAT, Pamela, IceCube or Ams-02. In this article, we perform a comprehensive analysis of QCD uncertainties, meaning both perturbative and nonperturbative sources of uncertainty are included – estimated via variations of MC renormalization-scale and fragmentation-function parameters, respectively – in antimatter spectra from dark-matter annihilation, based on parametric variations of the Pythia 8 event generator. After performing several retunings of light-quark fragmentation functions, we define a set of variations that span a conservative estimate of the QCD uncertainties. We estimate the effects on antimatter spectra for various annihilation channels and final-state particle species, and discuss their impact on fitted values for the dark-matter mass and thermally-averaged annihilation cross section. We find dramatic impacts which can go up to O(10%) for the annihilation cross section. We provide the spectra in tabulated form including QCD uncertainties and code snippets to perform fast dark-matter fits, in this github repository.

Abstract: The production cross-sections of Υ mesons, namely Υ(1S), Υ(2S) and Υ(3S), in pp collisions at root s = 5TeV are measured with a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 9.13 +/- 0.18 pb(-1) collected by the LHCb detector. The Υ mesons are reconstructed in the decay mode Υ -> mu(+)mu(-). Double differential cross-sections times branching fractions, as functions of the transverse momentum p(T) and the rapidity y of the Υ mesons, are measured in the range pT < 20 GeV/ c and 2.0 < y < 4.5. The results integrated over these pT and y ranges are sigma((sic)(1S)) x B((sic)(1S) -> mu(+) mu(-)) = 2101 +/- 33 +/- 83 pb, sigma((sic)(2S)) x B((sic)(2S) -> mu(+) mu(-)) = 526 +/- 20 +/- 21 pb, sigma((sic)(3S)) x B((sic)(3S) -> mu(+) mu(-)) = 242 +/- 16 +/- 10 pb, where the first uncertainties are statistical and the second are systematic. The ratios of cross-sections between measurements of two different (sic) states and between measurements at different centre-of-mass energies are determined. The nuclear modification factor of (sic)(1S) at root s = 5TeV is updated as well using the directly measured cross-section results from this analysis.