arXiv subjects

John Joseph M. Carrasco

Publications and source records attributed to John Joseph M. Carrasco.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2020

Simple encoding of higher derivative gauge and gravity counterterms

Invoking increasingly higher dimension operators to encode novel UV physics in effective gauge and gravity theories traditionally means working with increasingly more finicky and difficult expressions. We demonstrate that local higher derivative supersymmetric-compatible operators at four-points can be absorbed into simpler higher-derivative corrections to scalar theories, which generate the predictions of Yang-Mills and Gravity operators by suitable replacements of color-weights with color-dual kinematic weights as per Bern-Carrasco-Johansson double-copy. We exploit that Jacobi-satisfying representations can be composed out of other Jacobi-satisfying representations, and show that at four-points only a small number of building blocks are required to generate the predictions of higher-derivative operators. We find that this construction saturates the higher-derivative operators contributing to the four-point supersymmetric open and closed-string tree amplitudes, presenting a novel representation of the four-point supersymmetric open string making this structure manifest, as well as identifying the only four additional gauge-invariant building blocks required to saturate the four-point bosonic open string.

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arXiv2020

Loop-Level Double-Copy for Massive Quantum Particles

We find that scattering amplitudes in massive scalar QCD can manifest the duality between color and kinematics at loop-level. Specifically we construct the one-loop integrands for four-point scattering between two distinct massive scalars, and the five-point process encoding the first correction to massive scalar scattering with gluonic radiation. We find that factorization and the color-kinematics duality are sufficient principles to entirely bootstrap these calculations, allowing us to construct all contributions ultimately from the three-point tree-level amplitudes which are themselves entirely constrained by symmetry. Double-copy construction immediately provides the associated predictions for massive scalars scattering in the so called N=0 supergravity theory.

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arXiv2019

UV considerations on scattering amplitudes in a web of theories

The scattering predictions of a web of theories including Yang-Mills (YM), gravity, bi-adjoint scalar, the non-linear sigma model (NLSM), Dirac-Born-Infeld-Volkov-Akulov (DBI-VA) and the special Galileon (sGal) form a class of special objects with two fascinating properties: they are related by the double-copy procedure, and they can be defined purely by on-shell constraints. We expand on both of these properties. First we show that NLSM tree-level amplitudes are fully determined by imposing color-dual structure together with cyclic invariance and locality. We then consider how hard-scaling can be used to constrain the predictions of these theories, as opposed to the usual soft-scaling. We probe the UV by generalizing the familiar BCFW shift off-shell to a novel single hard limit. We show that UV scalings are sufficient to fully constrain: 1. Bi-adjoint doubly-ordered amplitudes, assuming locality; 2. NLSM and BI, assuming locality and unitarity; 3. Special Galileon, assuming locality, unitarity, and a UV bound for the general Galileon vertex. We see how potentially distinct aspects of this UV behavior can be understood and unified via double-copy relations. Surprisingly, we find evidence that assuming unitarity for these theories may not be necessary, and can emerge via UV considerations and locality alone. These results complete the observations that, like IR considerations, UV scaling is sufficient to fully constrain a wide range of tree-level amplitudes, for both gauge, gravity, and effective field theories.

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arXiv2018

Semi-abelian Z-theory: NLSM+phi^3 from the open string

We continue our investigation of Z-theory, the second double-copy component of open-string tree-level interactions besides super-Yang-Mills (sYM). We show that the amplitudes of the extended non-linear sigma model (NLSM) recently considered by Cachazo, Cha, and Mizera are reproduced by the leading alpha'-order of Z-theory amplitudes in the semi-abelian case. The extension refers to a coupling of NLSM pions to bi-adjoint scalars, and the semi-abelian case involves to a partial symmetrization over one of the color orderings that characterize the Z-theory amplitudes. Alternatively, the partial symmetrization corresponds to a mixed interaction among abelian and non-abelian states in the underlying open-superstring amplitude. We simplify these permutation sums via monodromy relations which greatly increase the efficiency in extracting the alpha'-expansion of these amplitudes. Their alpha'-corrections encode higher-derivative interactions between NLSM pions and bi-colored scalars all of which obey the duality between color and kinematics. Through double-copy, these results can be used to generate the predictions of supersymmetric Dirac-Born-Infeld-Volkov-Akulov theory coupled with sYM as well as a complete tower of higher-order alpha'-corrections.

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arXiv2017

The Five-Loop Four-Point Integrand of N=8 Supergravity as a Generalized Double Copy

We use the recently developed generalized double-copy procedure to construct an integrand for the five-loop four-point amplitude of N=8 supergravity. This construction starts from a naive double copy of the previously computed corresponding amplitude of N=4 super-Yang-Mills theory. This is then systematically modified by adding contact terms generated in the context of the method of maximal unitarity cuts. For the simpler generalized cuts, whose corresponding contact terms tend to be the most complicated, we derive a set of formulas relating the contact contributions to the violations of the dual Jacobi identities in the relevant gauge-theory amplitudes. For more complex generalized unitarity cuts, which tend to have simpler contact terms associated with them, we use the method of maximal cuts more directly. The five-loop four-point integrand is a crucial ingredient towards future studies of ultraviolet properties of N=8 supergravity at five loops and beyond. We also present a nontrivial check of the consistency of the integrand, based on modern approaches for integrating over the loop momenta in the ultraviolet region.

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arXiv2017

Abelian Z-theory: NLSM amplitudes and alpha'-corrections from the open string

In this paper we derive the tree-level S-matrix of the effective theory of Goldstone bosons known as the non-linear sigma model (NLSM) from string theory. This novel connection relies on a recent realization of tree-level open-superstring S-matrix predictions as a double copy of super-Yang-Mills theory with Z-theory --- the collection of putative scalar effective field theories encoding all the alpha'-dependence of the open superstring. Here we identify the color-ordered amplitudes of the NLSM as the low-energy limit of abelian Z-theory. This realization also provides natural higher-derivative corrections to the NLSM amplitudes arising from higher powers of alpha' in the abelian Z-theory amplitudes, and through double copy also to Born-Infeld and Volkov-Akulov theories. The Kleiss-Kuijf and Bern-Carrasco-Johansson relations obeyed by Z-theory amplitudes thereby apply to all alpha'-corrections of the NLSM. As such we naturally obtain a cubic-graph parameterization for the abelian Z-theory predictions whose kinematic numerators obey the duality between color and kinematics to all orders in alpha'.

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arXiv2015

Inflatino-less Cosmology

We construct inflationary models in the context of supergravity with orthogonal nilpotent superfields [1]. When local supersymmetry is gauge-fixed in the unitary gauge, these models describe theories with only a single real scalar (the inflaton), a graviton and a gravitino. Critically, there is no inflatino, no sgoldstino, and no sinflaton in these models. This dramatically simplifies cosmological models which can simultaneously describe inflation, dark energy and SUSY breaking.

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arXiv2015

Cosmological Attractors and Initial Conditions for Inflation

Inflationary $α$-attractor models in supergravity, which provide excellent fits to the latest observational data, are based on the Poincare disk hyperbolic geometry. We refine these models by constructing Kahler potentials with built-in inflaton shift symmetry and by making a canonical choice of the goldstino Kahler potential. The refined models are stable with respect to all scalar fields at all $α$, no additional stabilization terms are required. The scalar potential V has a nearly Minkowski minimum at small values of the inflaton field $φ$, and an infinitely long dS valley of constant depth and width at large $φ$. Because of the infinite length of this shift-symmetric valley, the initial value of the inflaton field at the Planck density is expected to be extremely large. We show that the inflaton field $φ$ does not change much until all fields lose their energy and fall to the bottom of the dS valley at large $φ$. This provides natural initial conditions for inflation driven by the inflaton field slowly rolling along the dS valley towards the minimum of the potential at small $φ$. A detailed description of this process is given for $α$-attractors in supergravity, but we believe that our general conclusions concerning naturalness of initial conditions for inflation are valid for a broad class of inflationary models with sufficiently flat potentials.

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arXiv2015

$α$-Attractors: Planck, LHC and Dark Energy

We develop four-parameter supergravity models of inflation and dark energy, constrained so that ${δρ\over ρ}$, $n_s$ and the cosmological constant $Λ$ take their known observable values, but where the mass of gravitino $m_{3/2}$ and the tensor-to-scalar ratio $r$ are free parameters. We focus on generalized cosmological $α$-attractor models, with logarithmic Kahler potentials, a nilpotent goldstino and spontaneously broken supersymmetry at the de Sitter minimum. The future data on B-modes will specify the parameter $α$, measuring the geometry of the Kahler, manifold. The string landscape idea for dark energy is supported in these models via an incomplete cancellation of the universal positive goldstino and negative gravitino contribution. The scale of SUSY breaking M related to the mass of gravitino in our models is a controllable parameter, independent on the scale of inflation, it will be constrained by LHC data and future collider Energy-frontier experiments.

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arXiv2015

Gauge and Gravity Amplitude Relations

In these lectures I talk about simplifications and universalities found in scattering amplitudes for gauge and gravity theories. In contrast to Ward identities, which are understood to arise from familiar symmetries of the classical action, these structures are currently only understood in terms of graphical organizational principles, such as the gauge-theoretic color-kinematics duality and the gravitational double-copy structure, for local representations of multi-loop S-matrix elements. These graphical principles make manifest new relationships in and between gauge and gravity scattering amplitudes. My lectures will focus on arriving at such graphical organizations for generic theories with examples presented from maximal supersymmetry, and their use in unitarity-based multi-loop integrand construction.

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arXiv2015

The Hyperbolic Geometry of Cosmological Attractors

Cosmological alpha-attractors give a natural explanation for the spectral index n_s of inflation as measured by Planck while predicting a range for the tensor-to-scalar ratio r, consistent with all observations, to be measured more precisely in future detection of gravity waves. Their embedding into supergravity exploits the hyperbolic geometry of the Poincare disk or half-plane. These geometries are isometric under Mobius transformations, which include the shift symmetry of the inflaton field. We introduce a new Kahler potential frame that explicitly preserves this symmetry, enabling the inflaton to be light. Moreover, we include higher-order curvature deformations, which can stabilize a direction orthogonal to the inflationary trajectory. We illustrate this new framework by stabilizing the single superfield alpha-attractors.

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arXiv2014

The 2-loop matter power spectrum and the IR-safe integrand

Large scale structure surveys are likely the next leading probe of cosmological information. It is therefore crucial to reliably predict their observables. The Effective Field Theory of Large Scale Structures (EFTofLSS) provides a manifestly convergent perturbation theory for the weakly non-linear regime, where dark matter correlation functions are computed in an expansion of the wavenumber k over the wavenumber associated to the non-linear scale knl. To push the predictions to higher wavenumbers, it is necessary to compute the 2-loop matter power spectrum. For equal-time correlators, exactly as with standard perturturbation theory, there are IR divergences present in each diagram that cancel completely in the final result. We develop a method by which all 2-loop diagrams are computed as one integral, with an integrand that is manifestly free of any IR divergences. This allows us to compute the 2-loop power spectra in a reliable way that is much less numerically challenging than standard techniques. We apply our method to scaling universes where the linear power spectrum is a single power law of k, and where IR divergences can particularly easily interfere with accurate evaluation of loop corrections if not handled carefully. We show that our results are independent of IR cutoff and, after renormalization, of the UV cutoff, and comment how the method presented here naturally generalizes to higher loops.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2014

The Effective Field Theory of Large Scale Structures at Two Loops

Large scale structure surveys promise to be the next leading probe of cosmological information. It is therefore crucial to reliably predict their observables. The Effective Field Theory of Large Scale Structures (EFTofLSS) provides a manifestly convergent perturbation theory for the weakly non-linear regime of dark matter, where correlation functions are computed in an expansion of the wavenumber k of a mode over the wavenumber associated with the non-linear scale k_nl. Since most of the information is contained at high wavenumbers, it is necessary to compute higher order corrections to correlation functions. After the one-loop correction to the matter power spectrum, we estimate that the next leading one is the two-loop contribution, which we compute here. At this order in k/k_nl, there is only one counterterm in the EFTofLSS that must be included, though this term contributes both at tree-level and in several one-loop diagrams. We also discuss correlation functions involving the velocity and momentum fields. We find that the EFTofLSS prediction at two loops matches to percent accuracy the non-linear matter power spectrum at redshift zero up to k~0.6 h/Mpc, requiring just one unknown coefficient that needs to be fit to observations. Given that Standard Perturbation Theory stops converging at redshift zero at k~0.1 h/Mpc, our results demonstrate the possibility of accessing a factor of order 200 more dark matter quasi-linear modes than naively expected. If the remaining observational challenges to accessing these modes can be addressed with similar success, our results show that there is tremendous potential for large scale structure surveys to explore the primordial universe.

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arXiv2014

Journeys Through Antigravity?

A possibility of journeys through antigravity has recently been proposed, with the suggestion that Weyl-invariant extension of scalars coupled to Einstein gravity allows for an unambiguous classical evolution through cosmological singularities in anisotropic spacetimes. We compute the Weyl invariant curvature squared and find that it blows up for the proposed anisotropic solution both at the Big Crunch as well as at the Big Bang. Therefore the cosmological singularities are not resolved by uplifting Einstein theory to a Weyl invariant model.

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arXiv2013

Hidden Supersymmetry May Imply Duality Invariance

We provide evidence that a particular hidden supersymmetry, when combined with half-maximal deformed global supersymmetry, implies that the theory is invariant under duality rotations of the vector and spinor fields. Based on a complete 8+8 supersymmetric model constructed recently, we argue that this hidden supersymmetry happens if and only if there is a Born-Infeld dependence on the Maxwell field strength and a Volkov-Akulov dependence on the Goldstino, up to local non-linear field redefinitions. We have tested our proposal for the N=2 superfield action with manifest N=2 supersymmetry and hidden N=2 supersymmetry at the level W^{10}, the highest level of deformation known for this model. We have established that it is N=2 self-dual, although the self-duality was not required in the original construction of this model. Highlighting the utility of considering duality-conserving sources of deformation, we can verify this invariance directly in an alternate construction of this very same action.

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arXiv2013

One-loop four-point amplitudes in pure and matter-coupled N <= 4 supergravity

We construct all supergravity theories that can be obtained through factorized orbifold projections of N=8 supergravity, exposing their double-copy structure, and calculate their one-loop four-point scattering amplitudes. We observe a unified structure in both matter and gravity amplitudes, and demonstrate that the four-graviton amplitudes are insensitive to the precise nature of the matter couplings. We show that these amplitudes are identical for the two different realizations of N=4 supergravity with two vector multiplets, and argue that this feature extends to all multiplicities and loop orders as well as to higher dimensions. We also construct a selected set of supergravities obtained through a non-factorized orbifold action. Furthermore we calculate one-loop four-point amplitudes for all pure super-Yang-Mills theories with less-than-maximal supersymmetry using the duality between color and kinematics, finding here a unified expression that holds for all four gluon amplitudes in the theories. We recover the related amplitudes of factorized N<=4 supergravities employing the double-copy construction. We observe a requirement that the four-point loop-level amplitudes have non-local integrand representations, exhibiting a mild non-locality in the form of inverse powers of the three external Mandelstam invariants. These are the first loop-level color-kinematic-satisfying representations in reduced supersymmetry theories.

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arXiv2012

The Effective Field Theory of Cosmological Large Scale Structures

Large scale structure surveys will likely become the next leading cosmological probe. In our universe, matter perturbations are large on short distances and small at long scales, i.e. strongly coupled in the UV and weakly coupled in the IR. To make precise analytical predictions on large scales, we develop an effective field theory formulated in terms of an IR effective fluid characterized by several parameters, such as speed of sound and viscosity. These parameters, determined by the UV physics described by the Boltzmann equation, are measured from N-body simulations. We find that the speed of sound of the effective fluid is c_s^2 10^(-6) and that the viscosity contributions are of the same order. The fluid describes all the relevant physics at long scales k and permits a manifestly convergent perturbative expansion in the size of the matter perturbations δ(k) for all the observables. As an example, we calculate the correction to the power spectrum at order δ(k)^4. The predictions of the effective field theory are found to be in much better agreement with observation than standard cosmological perturbation theory, already reaching percent precision at this order up to a relatively short scale k \sim 0.24 h/Mpc.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2012

Covariant procedures for perturbative non-linear deformation of duality-invariant theories

We analyze a recent conjecture regarding the perturbative construction of non-linear deformations of all classically duality invariant theories, including N=8 supergravity. Starting with an initial quartic deformation, we engineer a procedure that generates a particular non-linear deformation (Born-Infeld) of the Maxwell theory. This procedure requires the introduction of an infinite number of modifications to a constraint which eliminates degrees of freedom consistent with the duality and field content of the system. We discuss the extension of this procedure to N=1 and N=2 supersymmetric theories, and comment on its potential to either construct new supergravity theories with non-linear Born-Infeld type duality, or to constrain the finiteness of N=8 supergravity.

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