MULTILOOP STRINGLIKE FORMULAS FOR QED

Multiloop gauge-theory amplitudes written in the Feynman-parameter representation are poised to take advantage of two important developments of the past decade: the spinor-helicity technique and the superstring reorganization. The former has been considered in a previous paper; the latter will be elaborated in this paper. We show here how to write multiloop stringlike formulas in the Feynman-parameter representation for any diagram in QED, including those involving other nonelectromagnetic interactions, provided the internal photon lines are not adjacent to any external photon line. The general connection between the Feynman-parameter approach and the superstring and/or first-quantized approach is discussed. In the special case of a one-loop multiphoton amplitude, these formulas reduce to the ones obtained by the superstring and the first-quantized methods. The stringlike formulas exhibit a simple gauge structure which makes the Ward-Takahashi identity apparent, and enables the integration-by-parts technique of Bern and Kosower to be applied, so that gauge-invariant parts can be extracted diagram by diagram with the seagull vertex neglected.