Critical Points and Syzygies for Feynman Integrals

Abstract: We investigate a novel theoretical structure underlying the computation of integration-by-parts relations between Feynman integrals via syzygy-based methods. Building on insights from intersection theory, we analyze the large-$\epsilon$ limit of dimensional regularization on the maximal cut, showing that total derivatives vanish on the critical locus of the logarithm of the Baikov polynomial--the locus known to govern the number of master integrals. We introduce "critical syzygies" as a distinguished subset of syzygies that captures this behavior. We show that, when the critical locus is isolated, critical syzygies generate a sufficient set of total derivatives in the large-$\epsilon$ limit. We study their structure analytically at one loop and develop a numerical approach for their construction at two loops. Our results demonstrate that critical syzygies are a valuable tool for integral reduction in cutting-edge two-loop examples, offering a novel geometric perspective on integration-by-parts relations.