Two-loop helicity amplitudes for diphoton production with massive quark loop

Abstract

We compute two-loop helicity amplitudes in QCD for diphoton production through quark- and gluon-initiated channels, accounting for a massive internal quark loop by keeping its full mass dependence. Using physical projectors, we directly decompose the amplitude into its helicity components. By renormalising the heavy quark mass in on-shell, and other quantities in $\overline{\mathrm{MS}}$ schemes, we obtain finite remainders. This work paves the way for calculating the cross-section for diphoton production at higher orders in QCD with a massive quark loop, employing different subtraction schemes. The effect of a heavy quark is expected to play a crucial role in high-luminosity LHC.

Comments: Ancillary files at DOI: https://zenodo.org/records/14809206