Numerical integration of loop integrals through local cancellation of threshold singularities

Abstract

Abstract We propose a new approach that allows for the separate numerical calculation of the real and imaginary parts of finite loop integrals. We find that at one-loop the real part is given by the Loop-Tree Duality integral supplemented with suitable counterterms and the imaginary part is a sum of two-body phase space integrals, constituting a locally finite representation of the generalised optical theorem. These expressions are integrals in momentum space, whose integrands were specially designed to feature local cancellations of threshold singularities. Such a representation is well suited for Monte Carlo integration and avoids the drawbacks of a numerical contour deformation around remaining singularities. Our method is directly applicable to a range integrals with certain geometric properties but not yet fully generalised for arbitrary one-loop integrals. We demonstrate the computational performance with examples of one-loop integrals with various kinematic configurations, which gives promising prospects for an extension to multi-loop integrals.