Chinese Physicists Use AI to Compute Nine- and Ten-Loop Scattering Amplitudes

Researcher He Song from the Institute of Theoretical Physics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, together with students Li Xiang and Jing Jirong, has completed nine- and ten-loop symbolic computations of two types of six-particle scattering amplitudes (MHV and NMHV) in maximally supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory, using a new method developed in-house with AI assistance. After extensive preparation, the nine-loop calculation took less than half a day of runtime; after further efficiency improvements, the ten-loop calculations for both amplitude types were completed within one day.

Through the duality between MHV amplitudes and three-point form factors, the team also obtained the ten-loop symbol result for the three-point form factor, with more than 500 billion terms. Around the same time, Anthropic announced a nine-loop calculation using Claude, but obtained a function result for only one class of MHV amplitudes. The Chinese team completed symbolic computations for both classes, determining the key mathematical structure of the answers.

He Song emphasized that the two students did not merely use AI and existing tools; they jointly developed a new method that applies symmetry at every step of the calculation. The team plans to integrate the new algorithms into the automated package AsymBoot, turning these improvements into reusable tools for future research. He noted that the significance of the work extends beyond setting a record, as it builds reusable algorithms and computational pipelines that serve as new infrastructure for theoretical physics.