Two-loop QCD amplitudes for $t\bar{t}W$ production at the LHC in the leading-colour approximation

Abstract

We present a numerical computation of the two-loop QCD scattering amplitudes for the production of a top-antitop quark pair in association with a $W$ boson ($t\bar{t}W$) at the LHC in the generalised leading-colour approximation, retaining the exact dependence on the top-quark and $W$-boson masses. Rather than pursuing a fully analytic calculation, we employ a hybrid framework that combines numerical evaluation with strong algebraic and analytic control, allowing ultraviolet and infrared singularities as well as large intermediate cancellations to be treated exactly. This is achieved by expressing the finite remainder in terms of a set of special functions with rational coefficients. The special functions are evaluated numerically by solving differential equations through power-series expansions, while the values of the rational coefficients are reconstructed, point by point, from finite-field evaluations. The calculation is performed in the 't Hooft-Veltman scheme and validated against an independent implementation in conventional dimensional regularisation employing a substantially different computational strategy. We finally provide the colour- and polarisation-summed hard functions evaluated on the phase-space grid used in a previous computation of the next-to-next-to-leading-order QCD corrections to the $t\bar{t}W$ cross section.