The quarkonic contributions to the three-loop heavy-quark form factors for vector, axial-vector, scalar, and pseudoscalar currents are described by closed form difference equations for the expansion coefficients in the limit of small virtualities $q^2/m^2$. A part of the contributions can be solved analytically and expressed in terms of harmonic and cyclotomic harmonic polylogarithms and square-root valued iterated integrals. Other contributions obey equations which are not first-order factorizable. For them still infinite series expansions around the singularities of the form factors can be obtained by matching the expansions at intermediate points and using differential equations which are obeyed directly by the form factors and are derived by guessing algorithms. One may determine all expansion coefficients for $q^2/m^2\to \infty$ analytically in terms of multiple zeta values. By expanding around the threshold and pseudothreshold, the corresponding constants are multiple zeta values supplemented by a finite amount of new constants, which can be computed at high precision. For a part of these coefficients, the infinite series in front of these constants may be even resummed into harmonic polylogarithms. In this way, one obtains a deeper analytic description of the massive form factors, beyond their pure numerical evaluation. The calculations of these analytic results are based on sophisticated computer algebra techniques. We also compare our results with numerical results in the literature.

• Received 12 July 2023
• Accepted 6 September 2023

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.108.094003

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Published by the American Physical Society