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arXiv · 2406.03838

On universal splittings of tree-level particle and string scattering amplitudes

Qu Cao·Jin Dong·Song He·Canxin Shi·Fanky Zhu
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Abstract

In this paper, we study the newly discovered universal splitting behavior for tree-level scattering amplitudes of particles and strings~\cite{Cao:2024gln}: when a set of Mandelstam variables (and Lorentz products involving polarizations for gluons/gravitons) vanish, the $n$-point amplitude factorizes as the product of two lower-point currents with $n{+}3$ external legs in total. We refer to any such subspace of the kinematic space of $n$ massless momenta as "2-split kinematics", where the scattering potential for string amplitudes and the corresponding scattering equations for particle amplitudes nicely split into two parts. Based on these, we provide a systematic and detailed study of the splitting behavior for essentially all ingredients which appear as integrands for open- and closed-string amplitudes as well as Cachazo-He-Yuan (CHY) formulas, including Parke-Taylor factors, correlators in superstring and bosonic string theories, and CHY integrands for a variety of amplitudes of scalars, gluons and gravitons. These results then immediately lead to the splitting behavior of string and particle amplitudes in a wide range of theories, including bi-adjoint $\phi^3$ (with string extension known as $Z$ and $J$ integrals), non-linear sigma model, Dirac-Born-Infeld, the special Galileon, etc., as well as Yang-Mills and Einstein gravity (with bosonic and superstring extensions). Our results imply and extend some other factorization behavior of tree amplitudes considered recently, including smooth splittings~\cite{Cachazo:2021wsz} and factorizations near zeros~\cite{Arkani-Hamed:2023swr}, to all these theories. A special case of splitting also yields soft theorems for gluons/gravitons as well as analogous soft behavior for Goldstone particles near their Adler zeros.

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Qu Cao, Jin Dong, Song He, Canxin Shi, Fanky Zhu. 2024-06-06. On universal splittings of tree-level particle and string scattering amplitudes. https://arxiv.org/abs/2406.03838

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