Towards Equations for String Amplitudes

Abstract

Generic Feynman integrals are widely studied as solutions of Picard-Fuchs equations on moduli spaces of their parameters, and this calls for consideration of this phenomenon at a more basic level - of string amplitudes which are integrals over true non-singular module space of Riemann surfaces and their various generalizations. The main puzzle here is that a single string amplitude involves mane different particle diagrams, corresponding to different parts of the same moduli space, but different particle diagrams are usually believed to satisfy different equations, not unified into a common entity. We begin investigation of this problem, starting from Koba-Nielsen diagrams. While there is nothing interesting at this level for particles, the tree-level open bosonic string amplitudes satisfy non-trivial linear difference equations in kinematic variables. Moreover, the integration-by-parts on moduli space, standing behind Picard-Fuchs equations for particle loops, for strings are operative already at the tree level. We construct a complete system of such equations for arbitrary n-point tree amplitudes, with the number of independent relations matching the kinematic parameters. In variance with the particle case equations are difference ones rather than differential. The low-energy limit $α\to 0$ smoothly recovers the algebraic QFT structure.