Geometry of in-in correlators

Ross Glew

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arXiv · 2601.18903

Geometry of in-in correlators

Ross Glew

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Abstract

We introduce a family of polytopes -- in-in zonotopes -- whose boundary structure organizes the contributions to scalar equal-time correlators in flat space computed via the in-in formalism. We provide explicit Minkowski sum and facet descriptions of these polytopes, and show that their boundaries factorize into products of graphical zonotopes and lower-dimensional in-in zonotopes, thereby mimicking the factorization structure of the correlators themselves. Evaluating their canonical forms at the origin -- equivalently, calculating the volume of the dual polytope -- reproduces the correlator. Finally, in a simple example, we show that the wavefunction decomposition of the correlator corresponds to a subdivision of the dual polytope.

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Ross Glew. 2026-01-26. Geometry of in-in correlators. https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.18903

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