Feynman integrals obey linear relations governed by intersection numbers, which act as scalar products between vector spaces. We present a general algorithm for constructing multivariate intersection numbers relevant to Feynman integrals, and show for the first time how they can be used to solve the problem of integral reduction to a basis of master integrals by projections, and to directly derive functional equations fulfilled by the latter. We apply it to the derivation of contiguity relations for special functions admitting multi-fold integral representations, and to the decomposition of a few Feynman integrals at one-and two-loops, as first steps towards potential applications to generic multi-loop integrals.

We elaborate on the recent idea of a direct decomposition of Feynman integrals onto a basis of master integrals on maximal cuts using intersection numbers. We begin by showing an application of the method to the derivation of contiguity relations for special functions, such as the Euler beta function, the Gauss 2 F 1 hypergeometric function, and the Appell F 1 function. Then, we apply the new method to decompose Feynman integrals whose maximal cuts admit 1-form integral representations, including examples that have from two to an arbitrary number of loops, and/or from zero to an arbitrary number of legs. Direct constructions of differential equations and dimensional recurrence relations for Feynman integrals are also discussed. We present two novel approaches to decompositionby-intersections in cases where the maximal cuts admit a 2-form integral representation, with a view towards the extension of the formalism to n-form representations. The decomposition formulae computed through the use of intersection numbers are directly verified to agree with the ones obtained using integration-by-parts identities.

We present a detailed description of the recent idea for a direct decomposition of Feynman integrals onto a basis of master integrals by projections, as well as a direct derivation of the differential equations satisfied by the master integrals, employing multivariate intersection numbers. We discuss a recursive algorithm for the computation of multivariate intersection numbers, and provide three different approaches for a direct decomposition of Feynman integrals, which we dub the straight decomposition, the bottom-up decomposition, and the top-down decomposition. These algorithms exploit the unitarity structure of Feynman integrals by computing intersection numbers supported on cuts, in various orders, thus showing the synthesis of the intersection-theory concepts with unitarity-based methods and integrand decomposition. We perform explicit computations to exemplify all of these approaches applied to Feynman integrals, paving a way towards potential applications to generic multi-loop integrals.

We elaborate on the connection between Gel’fand-Kapranov-Zelevinsky systems, de Rham theory for twisted cohomology groups, and Pfaffian equations for Feynman Integrals. We propose a novel, more efficient algorithm to compute Macaulay matrices, which are used to derive Pfaffian systems of differential equations. The Pfaffian matrices are then employed to obtain linear relations for $$ \mathcal{A} $$ A -hypergeometric (Euler) integrals and Feynman integrals, through recurrence relations and through projections by intersection numbers.