Next-to-next-to-leading order ${\cal O}(\alpha_s^4)$ results for heavy quark pair production in quark--antiquark collisions: The one-loop squared contributions

TL;DR

This paper computes the detailed next-to-next-to-leading order QCD corrections for heavy quark pair production in quark-antiquark collisions, emphasizing the full mass dependence and revealing interesting factorization properties.

Contribution

It provides the first complete calculation of one-loop squared ${ m O}(rac{ ext{alpha}_s^4)}$ corrections with full mass dependence in a compact form.

Findings

Results are presented in a closed, compact form.

Discovered intriguing factorization properties of the finite amplitudes.

Retained full mass dependence in the calculations.

Abstract

We calculate the next-to-next-to-leading order ${\cal O}(\alpha_s^4)$ one-loop squared corrections to the production of heavy quark pairs in quark-antiquark annihilations. These are part of the next-to-next-to-leading order ${\cal O}(\alpha_s^4)$ radiative QCD corrections to this process. Our results, with the full mass dependence retained, are presented in a closed and very compact form, in the dimensional regularization scheme. We have found very intriguing factorization properties for the finite part of the amplitudes.