Landau singularities of the 7-point ziggurat. Part I

We compute the leading (first-type Landau) singularities of a certain four-loop 7-point graph that is related to the 7-point "ziggurat" graph by the graphical moves familiar from equivalent circuit theory. We find perfect agreement with a subset of the "heptagon symbol alphabet" that has appeared in the context of planar N\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \usepackage{amsmath} \usepackage{wasysym} \usepackage{amsfonts} \usepackage{amssymb} \usepackage{amsbsy} \usepackage{mathrsfs} \usepackage{upgreek} \setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \begin{document}$$ \mathcal{N} $$\end{document} = 4 super-Yang-Mills theory. The remaining heptagon symbol letters are found in its subleading Landau singularities, which we address in a companion paper.