Open-string integrals with multiple unintegrated punctures at genus one

Abstract

We study integrals appearing in intermediate steps of one-loop open-string amplitudes, with multiple unintegrated punctures on the $A$-cycle of a torus. We construct a vector of such integrals which closes after taking a total differential with respect to the $N$ unintegrated punctures and the modular parameter $\tau$. These integrals are found to satisfy the elliptic Knizhnik-Zamolodchikov-Bernard (KZB) equations, and can be written as a power series in $\alpha$' -- the string length squared -- in terms of elliptic multiple polylogarithms (eMPLs). In the $N$-puncture case, the KZB equation reveals a representation of $B_{1,N}$, the braid group of $N$ strands on a torus, acting on its solutions. We write the simplest of these braid group elements -- the braiding one puncture around another -- and obtain generating functions of analytic continuations of eMPLs. The KZB equations in the so-called universal case is written in terms of the genus-one Drinfeld-Kohno algebra $\mathfrak{t}_{1,N} \rtimes \mathfrak{d}$, a graded algebra. Our construction determines matrix representations of various dimensions for several generators of this algebra which respect its grading up to commuting terms.