Integral representations combining ladders and crossed-ladders

Understand

We use the worldline formalism to derive integral representations for three classes of amplitudes in scalar field theory: (i) the scalar propagator exchanging N momenta with a scalar background field (ii) the "half-ladder" with N rungs in x - space (iii) the four-point ladder with N rungs in x - space as well as in (off-shell) momentum space.

• In each case we give a compact expression combining the N! Feynman diagrams contributing to the amplitude.
• As our main application, we reconsider the well-known case of two massive scalars interacting through the exchange of a massless scalar.
• Applying asymptotic estimates and a saddle-point approximation to the N-rung ladder plus crossed ladder diagrams, we derive a semi-analytic approximation formula for the lowest bound state mass in this model.