The sum over planar multi-loop diagrams in the NS+ sector of type 0 open strings in flat spacetime has been proposed by Thorn as a candidate to resolve non-perturbative issues of gauge theories in the large $N$ limit. With $SU (N)$ Chan-Paton factors
, the sum over planar open string multi-loop diagrams describes the t Hooft limit $Nto infty$ with $Ng_s^2$ held fixed. By including only planar diagrams in the sum the usual mechanism for the cancellation of loop divergences (which occurs, for example, among the planar and Mobius strip diagrams by choosing a specific gauge group) is not available and a renormalization procedure is needed. In this article the renormalization is achieved by suspending total momentum conservation by an amount $pequiv sum_i^n k_i eq 0$ at the level of the integrands in the integrals over the moduli and analytically continuing them to $p=0$ at the very end. This procedure has been successfully tested for the 2 and 3 gluon planar loop amplitudes by Thorn. Gauge invariance is respected and the correct running of the coupling in the limiting gauge field theory was also correctly obtained. In this article we extend those results in two directions. First, we generalize the renormalization method to an arbitrary $n$-gluon planar loop amplitude giving full details for the 4-point case. One of our main results is to provide a fully renormalized amplitude which is free of both UV and the usual spurious divergences leaving only the physical singularities in it. Second, using the complete renormalized amplitude, we extract the high-energy scattering regime at fixed angle (tensionless limit). Apart from obtaining the usual exponential falloff at high energies, we compute the full dependence on the scattering angle which shows the existence of a smooth connection between the Regge and hard scattering regimes.
We study the Regge and hard scattering limits of the one-loop amplitude for massless open string states in the type I theory. For hard scattering we find the exact coefficient multiplying the known exponential falloff in terms of the scattering angle
, without relying on a saddle point approximation for the integration over the cross ratio. This bypasses the issues of estimating the contributions from flat directions, as well as those that arise from fluctuations of the gaussian integration about a saddle point. This result allows for a straightforward computation of the small- angle behavior of the hard scattering regime and we find complete agreement with the Regge limit at high momentum transfer, as expected.
