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Elia Mazzucchelli

Publications and source records attributed to Elia Mazzucchelli.

12 recordsLinked to original sources

Positive Singularities and Volumes in Scattering Amplitudes

Recent advances have revealed that scattering amplitudes in certain quantum field theories admit a geometric formulation in terms of positive geometries. In this framework, amplitudes are encoded by differential forms whose boundary structure reflects physical principles such as locality, unitarity, and factorization. This thesis gives a self-contained introduction to positive geometries, with particular emphasis on the Amplituhedron, which describes amplitudes in planar maximally supersymmetric Yang--Mills theory through its canonical form. We develop three related directions connecting positivity, volumes, and singularities. First, we study positivity properties of canonical forms through dual volume representations. For polytopes, canonical functions compute volumes of dual polytopes; we extend this picture to nonlinear positive geometries, uncovering non-negative transcendental measures and links with complete monotonicity. Second, we investigate loop-level amplitudes via their singularity structure. Combining Amplituhedron geometry with Landau analysis, we classify leading singularities of the Wilson loop with Lagrangian insertion and constrain the possible singular loci. Third, we examine conjectural relations between Landau singularities, positivity, and cluster algebras. Using momentum-twistor and Grassmannian methods, we identify recursive structures across loop orders, prove several infinite families of cases, and propose a strategy toward the general conjectures. Overall, the thesis develops the perspective that positive geometry provides a unifying language for the analytic and geometric organization of scattering amplitudes, from canonical forms and volumes to the singularities that emerge after loop integration.

hep-th

Landau Analysis in the Grassmannian

Momentum twistors for scattering amplitudes in particle physics are lines in three-space. We develop Landau analysis for Feynman integrals in this setting. The resulting discriminants and resultants are identified with Hurwitz and Chow forms of incidence varieties in products of Grassmannians. We study their degrees and factorizations, and the kinematic regimes in which the fibers of the Landau map are rational or real. Identifying this map with the amplituhedron map on positroid varieties, and the associated recursions with promotion maps, yields a geometric mechanism for the emergence of positivity and cluster structures in planar N=4 super Yang-Mills theory.

math.AG

Positivity and Cluster Structures in Landau Analysis

Landau analysis in momentum twistor space can be formulated as the study of varieties of lines in three-dimensional projective space, together with their projections and discriminants. Within this framework, we define enumerative invariants (LS degrees) that count leading singularities. Leading Landau singularities (LS discriminants) arise as discriminants detecting the collision of leading singularities. We uncover a recursive mechanism underlying Landau singularities, governed by substitution maps between Grassmannians. Applying this framework, we prove positivity and factorization into cluster variables for the LS discriminant of a large class of Landau diagrams at arbitrary loop order. This provides a first-principles explanation for the emergence of positivity and cluster algebra structures in the singularities of planar N=4 super Yang-Mills theory.

hep-th

Varieties of Lines in 3-Space

We consider configurations of lines in 3-space with incidences prescribed by a graph. This defines a subvariety in a product of Grassmannians. Leveraging a connection with rigidity theory in the plane, for any graph, we determine the dimension of the incidence variety and characterize when it is irreducible or a complete intersection. We study its multidegree and the family of Schubert problems it encodes. Our spanning-tree coordinates enable efficient symbolic computations. We also provide numerical irreducible decompositions for incidence varieties with up to eight lines. These constructions with lines play a key role in the Landau analysis of scattering amplitudes in particle physics.

math.CO

Canonical Forms as Dual Volumes

We study dual volume representations of canonical forms for positive geometries in projective spaces, expressing their rational canonical functions as Laplace transforms of measures supported on the convex dual of the semialgebraic set. When the measure is non-negative, we term the geometry completely monotone, reflecting the property of its canonical function. We identify a class of positive geometries whose canonical functions admit such dual volume representations, characterized by the algebraic boundary cut out by a hyperbolic polynomial, for which the geometry is a hyperbolicity region. In particular, simplex-like minimal spectrahedra are completely monotone, with representing measures related to the Wishart distribution, capturing volumes of spectrahedra or their boundaries. We explicitly compute these measures for positive geometries in the projective plane bounded by lines and conics or by a nodal cubic, revealing periods evaluating to transcendental functions. This dual volume perspective reinterprets positive geometries by replacing logarithmic differential forms with probability measures on the dual, forging new connections to partial differential equations, hyperbolicity, convexity, positivity, algebraic statistics, and convex optimization.

hep-th

Geometric Landau Analysis and Symbol Bootstrap

We investigate how the positive geometry framework for loop integrands in $\mathcal{N}{=}4$ super Yang-Mills theory constrains the structure of the integrated answers. This is done in the context of a geometric expansion of Wilson loops with a Lagrangian insertion, called negative geometries, extending ideas previously used for scattering amplitudes related to the Amplituhedron. The procedure we adopt combines the knowledge of all maximal codimension boundaries of the geometry, which characterize all possible leading singularities of the integral, with a geometrically informed Landau analysis. The interplay between geometry and Landau analysis arises from associating Landau diagrams to geometric boundaries. The boundary structure of the geometry then determines which solutions to the Landau equations are spurious and which ones are physical, that is, which singularities are actually present in the integral. This method allows us to efficiently determine the symbol alphabet of the associated integral, and serves as a starting point for the symbol bootstrap. We successfully implement this procedure and compute the six-point two-loop and five-point three-loop ladder negative geometries at the symbol level. We also present the conjectural alphabet for ladder negative geometries at two loops for all multiplicities. These are finite integrals that serve as building blocks for the Wilson loop with Lagrangian insertion, and therefore provide insights into the function space of the latter.

hep-th

Exterior Cyclic Polytopes and Convexity of Amplituhedra

The amplituhedron is a semialgebraic set in the Grassmannian. We study convexity and duality of amplituhedra. We introduce a notion of convexity, called \textit{extendable convexity}, for real semialgebraic sets in any embedded projective variety. We show that the $k=m=2$ amplituhedron is extendably convex in the Grassmannian of lines in projective three-space. In the process we introduce a new polytope called the \emph{exterior cyclic polytope}, generalizing the cyclic polytope. It is equal to the convex hull of the amplituhedron in the Pl\"ucker embedding. We undertake a combinatorial analysis of the exterior cyclic polytope, its facets, and its dual. Finally, we introduce the \textit{(extendable) dual amplituhedron}, which is closely related to the dual of the exterior cyclic polytope. We show that the dual amplituhedron for $k=m=2$ is again an amplituhedron, where the external matrix data is changed by the twist map.

math.CO

All-loop Leading Singularities of Wilson Loops

We study correlators of null, $n$-sided polygonal Wilson loops with a Lagrangian insertion in the planar limit of the ${\cal N}=4$ supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory. This finite observable is closely related to loop integrands of maximally-helicity-violating amplitudes in the same theory, and, conjecturally, to all-plus helicity amplitudes in pure Yang-Mills theory. The resulting function has been observed to have an expansion in terms of functions of uniform transcendental weight, multiplied by certain rational prefactors, called leading singularities. In this work we prove several conjectures about the leading singularities: we classify and compute them at any loop order and for any number of edges of the Wilson loop, and show that they have a hidden conformal symmetry. This is achieved by leveraging the geometric definition of the loop integrand via the Amplituhedron. The leading singularities can be seen as maximal codimension residues of the integrand, and the boundary structure of the Amplituhedron geometry restricts which iterative residues are accessible. Combining this idea with a further geometric decomposition of the Amplituhedron in terms of so-called negative geometries allows us to identify the complete set of leading singularities.

hep-th

The $\mathfrak{su}(2)_{-1}$ WZW model

Some WZW models on affine Lie superalgebras at critical level describe string theory on AdS backgrounds at critical values of the string tension. This is the case of $\mathfrak{psu}(1,1|2)_1$ for ${\rm AdS}_3 \times {\rm S}^3$ and potentially of $\mathfrak{u}(2|2)_1$ (or related algebras) for ${\rm AdS}_5 \times {\rm S}^5$. Many interesting features of these superalgebra models are already captured by their affine subalgebra $\mathfrak{su}(2)_{-1}$. In this paper we study the WZW model on $\mathfrak{su}(2)_{-1}$: we classify the representations, introduce a free field realisation, and decompose the free field modules in terms of $\mathfrak{su}(2)_{-1}$. We find continuous and discrete modular invariants and see that the latter naturally leads to considering superalgebra extensions of $\mathfrak{su}(2)_{-1}$. Lastly, we find an invariant for the free field theory of four symplectic bosons.

hep-th

The two-loop Amplituhedron

The loop-Amplituhedron $\mathcal{A}^{(L)}_{n}$ is a semialgebraic set in the product of Grassmannians $\mathrm{Gr}_{\mathbb{R}}(2,4)^L$. Recently, many aspects of this geometry for the case of $L=1$ have been elucidated, such as its algebraic and face stratification, its residual arrangement and the existence and uniqueness of the adjoint. This paper extends this analysis to the simplest higher loop case given by the two-loop four-point Amplituhedron $\mathcal{A}^{(2)}_4$.

hep-th

Hyperplane Arrangements in the Grassmannian

The Euler characteristic of a very affine variety encodes the algebraic complexity of solving likelihood (or scattering) equations on this variety. We study this quantity for the Grassmannian with $d$ hyperplane sections removed. We provide a combinatorial formula, and explain how to compute this Euler characteristic in practice, both symbolically and numerically. Our particular focus is on generic hyperplane sections and on Schubert divisors. We also consider special Schubert arrangements relevant for physics. We study both the complex and the real case.

math.AG

The $\mathfrak{u}(2|2)_1$ WZW model

WZW models based on super Lie algebras play an important role for the description of string theory on AdS spaces. In particular, for the case of ${\rm AdS}_3 \times {\rm S}^3$ with pure NS-NS flux the super Lie algebra of $\mathfrak{psu}(1,1|2)_k$ appears in the hybrid formalism, and higher dimensional AdS spaces can be described in terms of related supergroup cosets. In this paper we study the WZW models based on $\mathfrak{u}(2|2)_1$ and $\mathfrak{psu}(2|2)_1$ that may play a role for the worldsheet theory that is dual to free super Yang-Mills in 4D.

hep-th