BCFW recursion for light-like Wilson loop correlators

James Drummond; Matthew Rochford; Rowan Wright

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arXiv · 2608.19418

BCFW recursion for light-like Wilson loop correlators

James Drummond·Matthew Rochford·Rowan Wright

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Abstract

We apply the idea of holomorphic linking (arXiv:1101.1329) to correlators of multiple light-like loop operators in $\mathcal{N}=4$ super Yang-Mills theory. This allows us to extend the BCFW recursion relations for planar scattering amplitude integrands or single Wilson loops in the planar theory to correlators of multiple loop operators. We discover a novel term which feeds the recursion for single loops into the relation for multiple loop operators. We illustrate the recursion relations with several examples and highlight its applicability in combination with the $\bar{Q}$-equation for multiple loop operators. Finally, we again employ holomorphic linking to derive a recursion relation for colour-exact Wilson loop correlators.

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James Drummond, Matthew Rochford, Rowan Wright. 2026-08-19. BCFW recursion for light-like Wilson loop correlators. https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.19418

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