Three-loop effective potential of general scalar theory via differential equations

Abstract

We consider the scalar sector of a general renormalizable theory and evaluate the effective potential through three loops analytically. We encounter three-loop vacuum bubble diagrams with up to two masses and six lines, which we solve using differential equations transformed into the favorable $\epsilon$ form of dimensional regularization. The master integrals of the canonical basis thus obtained are expressed in terms of cyclotomic polylogarithms up to weight four. We also introduce an algorithm for the numerical evaluation of cyclotomic polylogarithms with multiple-precision arithmetic, which is implemented in the Mathematica package cyclogpl.m supplied here.