Improving Colour Computations in MadGraph5_aMC@NLO and Exploring a 1/Nc Expansion

Abstract

In this paper, we present an extension of MadGraph5_aMC@NLO which is able to evaluate tree-level QCD matrix-elements up to $2\to 6$ (one more particle than before). To achieve this, we implemented Berends-Giele-like recursion, and re-implemented the way colour is computed such that we can now expand the colour matrix in powers of 1/Nc and truncate this expansion to a chosen order. For high multiplicity samples, even without truncating the colour matrix, the new implementation offers a speed gain compared to the previous MadGraph5_aMC@NLO code.

Comments: Published version in EPJC. Minor changes to v1. 18 pages, 18 figures