Symbol alphabets of n-particle amplitudes in N=4 super-Yang-Mills theory are known to contain certain cluster variables of Gr(4,n) as well as certain algebraic functions of cluster variables. The first paper arXiv:2007.00646 in this series focused on n=8 algebraic letters. In this paper we show that it is possible to obtain all rational symbol letters (in fact all cluster variables) by solving matrix equations of the form C Z = 0 if one allows C to be an arbitrary cluster parameterization of the top cell of Gr_+(n-4,n).
Symbol alphabets of n-particle amplitudes in N=4 super-Yang-Mills theory are known to contain certain cluster variables of Gr(4,n) as well as certain algebraic functions of cluster variables. In this paper we suggest an algorithm for computing these symbol alphabets from plabic graphs by solving matrix equations of the form C Z = 0 to associate functions on Gr(m,n) to parameterizations of certain cells of Gr(k,n) indexed by plabic graphs. For m=4 and n=8 we show that this association precisely reproduces the 18 algebraic symbol letters of the two-loop NMHV eight-point amplitude from four plabic graphs.
Symbol alphabets of n-particle amplitudes in N=4 super-Yang-Mills theory are known to contain certain cluster variables of Gr(4,n) as well as certain algebraic functions of cluster variables. In this paper we solve the C Z = 0 matrix equations associated to several cells of the totally non-negative Grassmannian, combining methods of arXiv:2012.15812 for rational letters and arXiv:2007.00646 for algebraic letters. We identify sets of parameterizations of the top cell of Gr_+(5,9) for which the solutions produce all of (and only) the cluster variable letters of the 2-loop nine-particle NMHV amplitude, and identify plabic graphs from which all of its algebraic letters originate.
It is widely expected that NMHV amplitudes in planar, maximally supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory require symbol letters that are not rationally expressible in terms of momentum-twistor (or cluster) variables starting at two loops for eight particles. Recent advances in loop integration technology have made this an `experimentally testable hypothesis: compute the amplitude at some kinematic point, and see if algebraic symbol letters arise. We demonstrate the feasibility of such a test by directly integrating the most difficult of the two-loop topologies required. This integral, together with its rotated image, suffices to determine the simplest NMHV component amplitude: the unique component finite at this order. Although each of these integrals involve algebraic symbol alphabets, the combination contributing to this amplitude is---surprisingly---rational. We describe the steps involved in this analysis, which requires several novel tricks of loop integration and also a considerable degree of algebraic number theory. We find dramatic and unusual simplifications, in which the two symbols initially expressed as almost ten million terms in over two thousand letters combine in a form that can be written in five thousand terms and twenty-five letters.
We propose to use tensor diagrams and the Fomin-Pylyavskyy conjectures to explore the connection between symbol alphabets of $n$-particle amplitudes in planar $mathcal{N}=4$ Yang-Mills theory and certain polytopes associated to the Grassmannian G(4, $n$). We show how to assign a web (a planar tensor diagram) to each facet of these polytopes. Webs with no inner loops are associated to cluster variables (rational symbol letters). For webs with a single inner loop we propose and explicitly evaluate an associated web series that contains information about algebraic symbol letters. In this manner we reproduce the results of previous analyses of $n le 8$, and find that the polytope $mathcal{C}^dagger(4,9)$ encodes all rational letters, and all square roots of the algebraic letters, of nine-particle amplitudes.
Planar bicolored (plabic) graphs are combinatorial objects introduced by Postnikov to give parameterizations of the positroid cells of the totally nonnegative Grassmannian $text{Gr}^{geq 0}(n,k)$. Any two plabic graphs for the same positroid cell can be related by a sequence of certain moves. The flip graph has plabic graphs as vertices and has edges connecting the plabic graphs which are related by a single move. A recent result of Galashin shows that plabic graphs can be seen as cross-sections of zonotopal tilings for the cyclic zonotope $Z(n,3)$. Taking this perspective, we show that the fundamental group of the flip graph is generated by cycles of length 4, 5, and 10, and use this result to prove a related conjecture of Dylan Thurston about triple crossing diagrams. We also apply our result to make progress on an instance of the generalized Baues problem.