Towards Positive Geometry of Multi Scalar Field Amplitudes : Accordiohedron and Effective Field Theory

Abstract

The geometric structure of S-matrix encapsulated by the "Amplituhedron program" has begun to reveal itself even in non-supersymmetric quantum field theories. Starting with the seminal work of Arkani-Hamed, Bai, He and Yan it is now understood that for a wide class of scalar quantum field theories, tree-level amplitudes are canonical forms associated to polytopes known as accordiohedra. Similarly the higher loop scalar integrands are canonical forms associated to so called type-D cluster polytopes for cubic interactions or recently discovered class of polytopes termed pseudo-accordiohedron for higher order scalar interactions. In this paper, we continue to probe the universality of these structures for a wider class of scalar quantum field theories. More in detail, we discover new realisations of the associahedron in planar kinematic space whose canonical forms generate (colour-ordered) tree-level S matrix of external massless particles with $n-4$ massless poles and one massive pole at $m^{2}$. The resulting amplitudes are associated to $\lambda_{1}\, \phi_{1}^{3}\, +\, \lambda_{2}\, \phi_{1}^{2}\phi_{2}$ potential where $\phi_{1}$ and $\phi_{2}$ are massless and massive scalar fields with bi-adjoint colour indices respectively. We also show how in the "decoupling limit" (where $m \rightarrow \infty, \lambda_{2} \rightarrow \infty$ such that $g := \frac{\lambda_{2}}{m} = \textrm{finite}$) these associahedra project onto a specific class of accordiohedron which are known to be positive geometries of amplitudes generated by $\lambda \phi_{1}^{3} + g \phi_{1}^{4}$.