arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Chris D. White.
Biadjoint scalar theories are novel field theories that arise in the study of non-abelian gauge and gravity amplitudes. In this short paper, we present exact nonperturbative solutions of the field equations, and compare their properties with monopole-like solutions in non-abelian gauge theory. Our results may pave the way for nonperturbative studies of the double copy.
This paper considers the recovery of a rank $r$ positive semidefinite matrix $X X^T\in\mathbb{R}^{n\times n}$ from $m$ scalar measurements of the form $y_i := a_i^T X X^T a_i$ (i.e., quadratic measurements of $X$). Such problems arise in a variety of applications, including covariance sketching of high-dimensional data streams, quadratic regression, quantum state tomography, among others. A natural approach to this problem is to minimize the loss function $f(U) = \sum_i (y_i - a_i^TUU^Ta_i)^2$ which has an entire manifold of solutions given by $\{XO\}_{O\in\mathcal{O}_r}$ where $\mathcal{O}_r$ is the orthogonal group of $r\times r$ orthogonal matrices; this is {\it non-convex} in the $n\times r$ matrix $U$, but methods like gradient descent are simple and easy to implement (as compared to semidefinite relaxation approaches). In this paper we show that once we have $m \geq C nr \log^2(n)$ samples from isotropic gaussian $a_i$, with high probability {\em (a)} this function admits a dimension-independent region of {\em local strong convexity} on lines perpendicular to the solution manifold, and {\em (b)} with an additional polynomial factor of $r$ samples, a simple spectral initialization will land within the region of convexity with high probability. Together, this implies that gradient descent with initialization (but no re-sampling) will converge linearly to the correct $X$, up to an orthogonal transformation. We believe that this general technique (local convexity reachable by spectral initialization) should prove applicable to a broader class of nonconvex optimization problems.
Advances in our understanding of perturbation theory suggest the existence of a correspondence between classical general relativity and Yang-Mills theory. A concrete example of this correspondence, which is known as the double copy, was recently introduced for the case of stationary Kerr-Schild spacetimes. Building on this foundation, we examine the simple time-dependent case of an accelerating, radiating point source. The gravitational solution, which generalises the Schwarzschild solution, includes a non-trivial stress-energy tensor. This stress-energy tensor corresponds to a gauge theoretic current in the double copy. We interpret both of these sources as representing the radiative part of the field. Furthermore, in the simple example of Bremsstrahlung, we determine a scattering amplitude describing the radiation, maintaining the double copy throughout. Our results provide the strongest evidence yet that the classical double copy is directly related to the BCJ double copy for scattering amplitudes.
In this paper we present new results for the combinatorics of web diagrams and web worlds. These are discrete objects that arise in the physics of calculating scattering amplitudes in non-abelian gauge theories. Web-colouring and web-mixing matrices (collectively known as web matrices) are indexed by ordered pairs of web-diagrams and contain information relating the number of colourings of the first web diagram that will produce the second diagram. We introduce the black diamond product on power series and show how it determines the web-colouring matrix of disjoint web worlds. Furthermore, we show that combining known physical results with the black diamond product gives a new technique for generating combinatorial identities. Due to the complicated action of the product on power series, the resulting identities appear highly non-trivial. We present two results to explain repeated entries that appear in the web matrices. The first of these shows how diagonal web matrix entries will be the same if the comparability graphs of their associated decomposition posets are the same. The second result concerns general repeated entries in conjunction with a flipping operation on web diagrams. We present a combinatorial proof of idempotency of the web-mixing matrices, previously established using physical arguments only. We also show how the entries of the square of the web-colouring matrix can be achieved by a linear transformation that maps the standard basis for formal power series in one variable to a sequence of polynomials. We look at one parameterized web world that is related to indecomposable permutations and show how determining the web-colouring matrix entries in this case is equivalent to a combinatorics on words problem.
In this paper we present a global fit of beyond the Standard Model (BSM) dimension six operators relevant to the top quark sector to currently available data. Experimental measurements include parton-level top-pair and single top production from the LHC and the Tevatron. Higher order QCD corrections are modelled using differential and global K-factors, and we use novel fast-fitting techniques developed in the context of Monte Carlo event generator tuning to perform the fit. This allows us to provide new, fully correlated and model-independent bounds on new physics effects in the top sector from the most current direct hadron-collider measurements in light of the involved theoretical and experimental systematics. As a by-product, our analysis constitutes a proof-of-principle that fast fitting of theory to data is possible in the top quark sector, and paves the way for a more detailed analysis including top quark decays, detector corrections and precision observables.
We study the structure of soft gluon corrections to multi-leg scattering amplitudes in a non-Abelian gauge theory by analysing the corresponding product of semi-infinite Wilson lines. We prove that diagrams exponentiate such that the colour factors in the exponent are fully connected. This completes the generalisation of the non-Abelian exponentiation theorem, previously proven in the case of a Wilson loop, to the case of multiple Wilson lines in arbitrary representations of the colour group. Our proof is based on the replica trick in conjunction with a new formalism where multiple emissions from a Wilson line are described by effective vertices, each having a connected colour factor. The exponent consists of connected graphs made out of these vertices. We show that this readily provides a general colour basis for webs. We further discuss the kinematic combinations that accompany each connected colour factor, and explicitly catalogue all three-loop examples, as necessary for a direct computation of the soft anomalous dimension at this order.
Recently, a perturbative duality between gauge and gravity theories (the double copy) has been discovered, that is believed to hold to all loop orders. In this paper, we examine the relationship between classical solutions of non-Abelian gauge theory and gravity. We propose a general class of gauge theory solutions that double copy to gravity, namely those involving stationary Kerr-Schild metrics. The Schwarzschild and Kerr black holes (plus their higher-dimensional equivalents) emerge as special cases. We also discuss plane wave solutions. Furthermore, a recently examined double copy between the self-dual sectors of Yang-Mills theory and gravity can be reinterpreted using a momentum-space generalisation of the Kerr-Schild framework.
We perform a case study of the behavior of gluon radiation beyond the soft approximation, using as an example the Drell-Yan production cross section at NNLO. We draw a careful distinction between the eikonal expansion, which is in powers of the soft gluon energies, and the expansion in powers of the threshold variable $1 - z$, which involves important hard-collinear effects. Focusing on the contribution to the NNLO Drell-Yan K-factor arising from real-virtual interference, we use the method of regions to classify all relevant contributions up to next-to-leading power in the threshold expansion. With this method, we reproduce the exact two-loop result to the required accuracy, including $z$-independent non-logarithmic contributions, and we precisely identify the origin of the soft-collinear interference which breaks simple soft-gluon factorization at next-to-eikonal level. Our results pave the way for the development of a general factorisation formula for next-to-leading-power threshold logarithms, and clarify the nature of loop corrections to a set of recently proposed next-to-soft theorems.
Webs are weighted sets of Feynman diagrams which build up the logarithms of correlators of Wilson lines, and provide the ingredients for the computation of the soft anomalous dimension. We present a general analysis of multiple gluon exchange webs (MGEWs) in correlators of semi-infinite non-lightlike Wilson lines, as functions of the exponentials of the Minkowski cusp angles, $α_{ij}$, formed between lines $i$ and $j$. We compute a range of webs in this class, connecting up to five Wilson lines through four loops, we give an all-loop result for a special class of diagrams, and we discover a new kind of relation between webs connecting different numbers of Wilson lines, based on taking collinear limits. Our results support recent conjectures, stating that the contribution of any MGEW to the soft anomalous dimension is a sum of products of polylogarithms, each depending on a single cusp angle, and such that their symbol alphabet is restricted to $α_{i j}$ and $1 - α_{i j}^2$. Finally, we construct a simple basis of functions, defined through a one-dimensional integral representation in terms of powers of logarithms, which has all the expected analytic properties. This basis allows us to compactly express the results of all MGEWs computed so far, and we conjecture that it is sufficient for expressing all MGEWs at any loop order.
Motivated by a geometric problem, we introduce a new non-convex graph partitioning objective where the optimality criterion is given by the sum of the Dirichlet eigenvalues of the partition components. A relaxed formulation is identified and a novel rearrangement algorithm is proposed, which we show is strictly decreasing and converges in a finite number of iterations to a local minimum of the relaxed objective function. Our method is applied to several clustering problems on graphs constructed from synthetic data, MNIST handwritten digits, and manifold discretizations. The model has a semi-supervised extension and provides a natural representative for the clusters as well.
The non-Abelian exponentiation theorem has recently been generalised to correlators of multiple Wilson line operators. The perturbative expansions of these correlators exponentiate in terms of sets of diagrams called webs, which together give rise to colour factors corresponding to connected graphs. The colour and kinematic degrees of freedom of individual diagrams in a web are entangled by mixing matrices of purely combinatorial origin. In this paper we relate the combinatorial study of these matrices to properties of partially ordered sets (posets), and hence obtain explicit solutions for certain families of web-mixing matrix, at arbitrary order in perturbation theory. We also provide a general expression for the rank of a general class of mixing matrices, which governs the number of independent colour factors arising from such webs. Finally, we use the poset language to examine a previously conjectured sum rule for the columns of web-mixing matrices which governs the cancellation of the leading subdivergences between diagrams in the web. Our results, when combined with parallel developments in the evaluation of kinematic integrals, offer new insights into the all-order structure of infrared singularities in non-Abelian gauge theories.
We derive the law of generalised refraction for generalised confocal lenslet arrays, which are arrays of misaligned telescopes. We have implemented this law of refraction in TIM, a custom open-source ray tracer.
We consider ZH and WH production at the Large Hadron Collider, where the Higgs decays to a bb pair. We use jet substructure techniques to reconstruct the Higgs boson and construct angular observables involving leptonic decay products of the vector bosons. These efficiently discriminate between the tensor structure of the HVV vertex expected in the Standard Model and that arising from possible new physics, as quantified by higher dimensional operators. This can then be used to examine the CP nature of the Higgs as well as CP mixing effects in the HZZ and HWW vertices separately.
We introduce a new combinatorial object called a web world that consists of a set of web diagrams. The diagrams of a web world are generalizations of graphs, and each is built on the same underlying graph. Instead of ordinary vertices the diagrams have pegs, and edges incident to a peg have different heights on the peg. The web world of a web diagram is the set of all web diagrams that result from permuting the order in which endpoints of edges appear on a peg. The motivation comes from particle physics, where web diagrams arise as particular types of Feynman diagrams describing scattering amplitudes in non-Abelian gauge (Yang-Mills) theories. To each web world we associate two matrices called the web-colouring matrix and web-mixing matrix. The entries of these matrices are indexed by ordered pairs of web diagrams (D_1,D_2), and are computed from those colourings of the edges of D_1 that yield D_2 under a transformation determined by each colouring. We show that colourings of a web diagram (whose constituent indecomposable diagrams are all unique) that lead to a reconstruction of the diagram are equivalent to order-preserving mappings of certain partially ordered sets (posets) that may be constructed from the web diagrams. For web worlds whose web graphs have all edge labels equal to 1, the diagonal entries of web-mixing and web-colouring matrices are obtained by summing certain polynomials determined by the descents in permutations in the Jordan-Holder set of all linear extensions of the associated poset. We derive tri-variate generating generating functions for the number of web worlds according to three statistics and enumerate the number of different web diagrams in a web world. Three special web worlds are examined in great detail, and the traces of the web-mixing matrices calculated in each case.
We use our current understanding of the all-order singularity structure of gauge theory amplitudes to probe their high-energy limit. Our starting point is the dipole formula, a compact ansatz for the soft anomalous dimension matrix of massless multi-particle amplitudes. In the high-energy limit, we find a simple and general expression for the infrared factor generating all soft and collinear singularities of the amplitude, which is valid to leading power in $|t|/s$ and to all logarithmic orders. This leads to a direct and general proof of leading-logarithmic Reggeization for infrared divergent contributions to the amplitude. Furthermore, we can prove explicitly that the simplest form of Reggeization, based on the absence of Regge cuts in the complex angular momentum plane, breaks down at the NNLL level. Finally, we note that the known features of the high-energy limit can be used to constrain possible corrections to the dipole formula, starting at the three-loop order.
We review recent results on the high-energy limit of gauge amplitudes, which can be derived from the universal properties of their infrared singularities. Using the dipole formula, a compact ansatz for infrared singularities of massless gauge amplitudes, and taking the high-energy limit, we provide a simple expression for the soft factor of a generic high-energy amplitude, valid to leading power in $t/s$ and to all logarithmic orders. This gives a direct and general proof of leading-logarithmic Reggeization for infrared divergent contributions to the amplitude, and it shows how Reggeization breaks down at NNLL level. We further show how the dipole formula constrains the high-energy limit of multi-particle amplitudes in multi-Regge kinematics, and how, on the other hand, Regge theory constrains possible corrections to the dipole formula.
We develop an approach to the high-energy limit of gauge theories based on the universal properties of their infrared singularities. Our main tool is the dipole formula, a compact ansatz for the all-order infrared singularity structure of scattering amplitudes of massless partons. By taking the high-energy limit, we show that the dipole formula implies Reggeization of infrared-singular contributions to the amplitude, at leading logarithmic accuracy, for the exchange of arbitrary color representations in the cross channel. We observe that the real part of the amplitude Reggeizes also at next-to-leading logarithmic order, and we compute the singular part of the two-loop Regge trajectory, which is universally expressed in terms of the cusp anomalous dimension. Our approach provides tools to study the high-energy limit beyond the boundaries of Regge factorization: thus we show that Reggeization generically breaks down at next-to-next-to-leading logarithmic accuracy, and provide a general expression for the leading Reggeization-breaking operator. Our approach applies to multiparticle amplitudes in multi-Regge kinematics, and it also implies new constraints on possible corrections to the dipole formula, based on the Regge limit.
The polarisation of top quarks produced in high energy processes can be a very sensitive probe of physics beyond the Standard Model. The kinematical distributions of the decay products of the top quark can provide clean information on the polarisation of the produced top and thus can probe new physics effects in the top quark sector. We study some of the recently proposed polarisation observables involving the decay products of the top quark in the context of $H^-t$ and $Wt$ production. We show that the effect of the top polarisation on the decay lepton azimuthal angle distribution, studied recently for these processes at leading order in QCD, is robust with respect to the inclusion of next-to-leading order and parton shower corrections. We also consider the leptonic polar angle, as well as recently proposed energy-related distributions of the top decay products. We construct asymmetry parameters from these observables, which can be used to distinguish the new physics signal from the $Wt$ background and discriminate between different values of $\tanβ$ and $m_{H^-}$ in a general type II two-Higgs doublet model. Finally, we show that similar observables may be useful in separating a Standard Model $Wt$ signal from the much larger QCD induced top pair production background.