arXiv subjects

Lionel Mason

Publications and source records attributed to Lionel Mason.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2017

Amplitudes on plane waves from ambitwistor strings

In marked contrast to conventional string theory, ambitwistor strings remain solvable worldsheet theories when coupled to curved background fields. We use this fact to consider the quantization of ambitwistor strings on plane wave metric and plane wave gauge field backgrounds. In each case, the worldsheet model is anomaly free as a consequence of the background satisfying the field equations. We derive vertex operators (in both fixed and descended picture numbers) for gravitons and gluons on these backgrounds from the worldsheet CFT, and study the 3-point functions of these vertex operators on the Riemann sphere. These worldsheet correlation functions reproduce the known results for 3-point scattering amplitudes of gravitons and gluons in gravitational and gauge theoretic plane wave backgrounds, respectively.

hep-th↗

arXiv2017

Twistor theory at fifty: from contour integrals to twistor strings

We review aspects of twistor theory, its aims and achievements spanning thelast five decades. In the twistor approach, space--time is secondary with events being derived objects that correspond to compact holomorphic curves in a complex three--fold -- the twistor space. After giving an elementary construction of this space we demonstrate how solutions to linear and nonlinear equations of mathematical physics: anti-self-duality (ASD) equations on Yang--Mills, or conformal curvature can be encoded into twistor cohomology. These twistor correspondences yield explicit examples of Yang--Mills, and gravitational instantons which we review. They also underlie the twistor approach to integrability: the solitonic systems arise as symmetry reductions of ASD Yang--Mills equations, and Einstein--Weyl dispersionless systems are reductions of ASD conformal equations. We then review the holomorphic string theories in twistor and ambitwistor spaces, and explain how these theories give rise to remarkable new formulae for the computation of quantum scattering amplitudes. Finally we discuss the Newtonian limit of twistor theory, and its possible role in Penrose's proposal for a role of gravity in quantum collapse of a wave function.

hep-th↗

arXiv2017

The Correlahedron

We introduce a new geometric object, the correlahedron, which we conjecture to be equivalent to stress-energy correlators in planar N=4 super Yang-Mills. Re-expressing the Grassmann dependence of correlation functions of n chiral stress-energy multiplets with Grassmann degree 4k in terms of 4(n+k)-linear bosonic variables, the resulting expressions have an interpretation as volume forms on a Gr(n+k,4+n+k) Grassmannian, analogous to the expressions for planar amplitudes via the amplituhedron. The resulting volume forms are to be naturally associated with the correlahedron geometry. We construct such expressions in this bosonised space both directly, in general, from Feynman diagrams in twistor space, and then more invariantly from specific known correlator expressions in analytic superspace. We give a geometric interpretation of the action of the consecutive lightlike limit and show that under this the correlahedron reduces to the squared amplituhedron both as a geometric object as well as directly on the corresponding volume forms. We give an explicit easily implementable algorithm via cylindrical decompositions for extracting the squared amplituhedron volume form from the squared amplituhedron geometry with explicit examples and discuss the analogous procedure for the correlators.

hep-th↗

arXiv2016

Two-Loop Scattering Amplitudes from the Riemann Sphere

The scattering equations give striking formulae for massless scattering amplitudes at tree level and, as shown recently, at one loop. The progress at loop level was based on ambitwistor string theory, which naturally yields the scattering equations. We proposed that, for ambitwistor strings, the standard loop expansion in terms of the genus of the worldsheet is equivalent to an expansion in terms of nodes of a Riemann sphere, with the nodes carrying the loop momenta. In this paper, we show how to obtain two-loop scattering equations with the correct factorization properties. We adapt genus-two integrands from the ambitwistor string to the nodal Riemann sphere and show that these yield correct answers, by matching standard results for the four-point two-loop amplitudes of maximal supergravity and super-Yang-Mills theory. In the Yang-Mills case, this requires the loop analogue of the Parke-Taylor factor carrying the colour dependence, which includes non-planar contributions.

hep-th↗

arXiv2016

One-loop amplitudes on the Riemann sphere

The scattering equations provide a powerful framework for the study of scattering amplitudes in a variety of theories. Their derivation from ambitwistor string theory led to proposals for formulae at one loop on a torus for 10 dimensional supergravity, and we recently showed how these can be reduced to the Riemann sphere and checked in simple cases. We also proposed analogous formulae for other theories including maximal super-Yang-Mills theory and supergravity in other dimensions at one loop. We give further details of these results and extend them in two directions. Firstly, we propose new formulae for the one-loop integrands of Yang-Mills theory and gravity in the absence of supersymmetry. These follow from the identification of the states running in the loop as expressed in the ambitwistor-string correlator. Secondly, we give a systematic proof of the non-supersymmetric formulae using the worldsheet factorisation properties of the nodal Riemann sphere underlying the scattering equations at one loop. Our formulae have the same decomposition under the recently introduced Q-cuts as one-loop integrands and hence give the correct amplitudes.

hep-th↗

arXiv2015

New Ambitwistor String Theories

We describe new ambitwistor string theories that give rise to the recent amplitude formulae for Einstein-Yang-Mills, (Dirac)-Born-Infeld, Galileons and others introduced by Cachazo, He and Yuan. In the case of the Einstein-Yang-Mills amplitudes, an important role is played by a novel worldsheet conformal field theory that provides the appropriate colour factors precisely without the spurious multitrace terms of earlier models that had to be ignored by hand. This is needed to obtain the correct multitrace terms that arise when Yang-Mills is coupled to gravity.

hep-th↗

arXiv2015

Loop Integrands for Scattering Amplitudes from the Riemann Sphere

The scattering equations on the Riemann sphere give rise to remarkable formulae for tree-level gauge theory and gravity amplitudes. Adamo, Casali and Skinner conjectured a one-loop formula for supergravity amplitudes based on scattering equations on a torus. We use a residue theorem to transform this into a formula on the Riemann sphere. What emerges is a framework for loop integrands on the Riemann sphere that promises to have wide application, based on off-shell scattering equations that depend on the loop momentum. We present new formulae, checked explicitly at low points, for supergravity and super-Yang-Mills amplitudes and for n-gon integrands at one loop. Finally, we show that the off-shell scattering equations naturally extend to arbitrary loop order, and we give a proposal for the all-loop integrands for supergravity and planar super-Yang-Mills theory.

hep-th↗

arXiv2014

Ambitwistor strings at null infinity and subleading soft limits

The relationships between extended BMS symmetries at null infinity and Weinberg's soft theorems for gravitons and photons together with their subleading generalizations are developed using ambitwistor string theory. Ambitwistor space is the phase space of complex null geodesics in complexified space-time. We show how it can be canonically identified with the cotangent bundle of null infinity. BMS symmetries of null infinity lift to give a hamiltonian action on ambitwistor space, both in general dimension and in its twistorial 4-dimensional representation. General vertex operators arise from hamiltonians generating diffeomorphisms of ambitwistor space that determine the scattering from past to future null infinity. When a momentum eigenstate goes soft, the diffeomorphism defined by its leading and its subleading part are extended BMS generators realized in the world sheet conformal field theory of the ambitwistor string. More generally, this gives explicit perturbative correspondence between the scattering of null geodesics and that of the gravitational field via ambitwistor string theory.

hep-th↗

arXiv2014

Gravity in Twistor Space and its Grassmannian Formulation

We prove the formula for the complete tree-level $S$-matrix of $\mathcal{N}=8$ supergravity recently conjectured by two of the authors. The proof proceeds by showing that the new formula satisfies the same BCFW recursion relations that physical amplitudes are known to satisfy, with the same initial conditions. As part of the proof, the behavior of the new formula under large BCFW deformations is studied. An unexpected bonus of the analysis is a very straightforward proof of the enigmatic $1/z^2$ behavior of gravity. In addition, we provide a description of gravity amplitudes as a multidimensional contour integral over a Grassmannian. The Grassmannian formulation has a very simple structure; in the N$^{k-2}$MHV sector the integrand is essentially the product of that of an MHV and an $\overline{\rm MHV}$ amplitude, with $k+1$ and $n-k-1$ particles respectively.

hep-th↗

arXiv2014

Conformal and Einstein gravity from twistor actions

We use the embedding of Einstein gravity with cosmological constant into conformal gravity as a basis for using the twistor action for conformal gravity to obtain MHV scattering amplitudes not just for conformal gravity, but also for Einstein gravity on backgrounds with non-zero cosmological constant. The new formulae for the gravitational MHV amplitude with cosmological constant arise by summing Feynman diagrams using the matrix-tree theorem. We show that this formula is well-defined (i.e., is independent of certain gauge choices) and that it non-trivially reproduces Hodges' formula for the MHV amplitude in the flat-space limit. We give a preliminary discussion of a MHV formalism for more general amplitudes obtained from the conformal gravity twistor action in an axial gauge. We also see that the embedding of Einstein data into the conformal gravity action can be performed off-shell in twistor space to give a proposal for an Einstein twistor action that automatically gives the same MHV amplitude. These ideas extend naturally to N=4 supersymmetry.

hep-th↗

arXiv2013

Ambitwistor strings and the scattering equations

We show that string theories admit chiral infinite tension analogues in which only the massless parts of the spectrum survive. Geometrically they describe holomorphic maps to spaces of complex null geodesics, known as ambitwistor spaces. They have the standard critical space--time dimensions of string theory (26 in the bosonic case and 10 for the superstring). Quantization leads to the formulae for tree--level scattering amplitudes of massless particles found recently by Cachazo, He and Yuan. These representations localize the vertex operators to solutions of the same equations found by Gross and Mende to govern the behaviour of strings in the limit of high energy, fixed angle scattering. Here, localization to the scattering equations emerges naturally as a consequence of working on ambitwistor space. The worldsheet theory suggests a way to extend these amplitudes to spinor fields and to loop level. We argue that this family of string theories is a natural extension of the existing twistor string theories.

hep-th↗

arXiv2013

From dlogs to dilogs; the super Yang-Mills MHV amplitude revisited

Recently, loop integrands for certain Yang-Mills scattering amplitudes and correlation functions have been shown to be systematically expressible in dlog form, raising the possibility that these loop integrals can be performed directly without Feynman parameters. We do so here to give a new description of the planar 1-loop MHV amplitude in N = 4 super Yang-Mills theory. We explicitly incorporate the standard Feynman i epsilon prescription into the integrands. We find that the generic MHV diagram contributing to the 1-loop MHV amplitude, known as Kermit, is dual conformal invariant up to the choice of reference twistor explicit in our axial gauge (the generic MHV diagram was already known to be finite). The new formulae for the amplitude are nontrivially related to previous ones in the literature. The divergent diagrams are evaluated using mass regularization. Our techniques extend directly to higher loop diagrams, and we illustrate this by sketching the evaluation of a non-trivial 2-loop example. We expect this to lead to a simple and efficient method for computing amplitudes and correlation functions with less supersymmetry and without the assumption of planarity.

hep-th↗

arXiv2013

From the Holomorphic Wilson Loop to `d log' Loop-Integrands of Super-Yang-Mills Amplitudes

The S-matrix for planar N = 4 super Yang-Mills theory can be computed as the correlation function for a holomorphic polygonal Wilson loop in twistor space. In an axial gauge, this leads to the construction of the all-loop integrand via MHV diagrams in twistor space. We show that at MHV, this formulation leads directly to expressions for loop integrands in d log form; i.e., the integrand is a product of exterior derivatives of logarithms of rational functions. For higher MHV degree, it is in d log form multiplied by delta functions. The parameters appearing in the d log form arise geometrically as the coordinates of insertion points of propagators on the holomorphic Wilson loop or on MHV vertices. We discuss a number of examples at one and two loops and give a preliminary discussion of the evaluation of the 1-loop MHV amplitude.

hep-th↗

arXiv2013

Twistor Construction of Higher-Dimensional Black Holes - Part II: Examples

We apply the twistor construction for higher-dimensional black holes to known examples in five space-time dimensions. First the patching matrices are calculated from the explicit metric for these examples. Then an ansatz is proposed for obtaining the patching matrix instead from the data of rod structure and angular momenta. The ansatz is tested on examples with up to three nuts, and these are shown to give flat space, the Myers-Perry solution and the black ring, as expected. Rules for the transition between different adaptations of the patching matrix and for the elimination of conical singularities are developed and seen to work.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2013

Twistor-strings and gravity tree amplitudes

Recently we discussed how Einstein supergravity tree amplitudes might be obtained from the original Witten and Berkovits twistor-string theory when external conformal gravitons are restricted to be Einstein gravitons. Here we obtain a more systematic understanding of the relationship between conformal and Einstein gravity amplitudes in that twistor-string theory. We show that although it does not in general yield Einstein amplitudes, we can nevertheless obtain some partial twistor-string interpretation of the remarkable formulae recently been found by Hodges and generalized to all tree amplitudes by Cachazo and Skinner. The Hodges matrix and its higher degree generalizations encode the world sheet correlators of the twistor string. These matrices control both Einstein amplitudes and those of the conformal gravity arising from the Witten and Berkovits twistor-string. Amplitudes in the latter case arise from products of the diagonal elements of the generalized Hodges matrices and reduced determinants give the former. The reduced determinants arise if the contractions in the worldsheet correlator are restricted to form connected trees at MHV. The (generalized) Hodges matrices arise as weighted Laplacian matrices for the graph of possible contractions in the correlators and the reduced determinants of these weighted Laplacian matrices give the sum of of the connected tree contributions by an extension of the Matrix-Tree theorem.

hep-th↗

arXiv2012

Amplitudes of 3d Yang Mills Theory

This paper studies various properties of amplitudes in 3d super Yang Mills theory. First we explain how to obtain the amplitudes of 3d super Yang Mills theories from 4d super Yang Mills theories and obtain their helicity structure. Next, we use a 3d BFCW recursion relation to show that the tree amplitudes and loop integrands of maximal 3d super Yang Mills have dual conformal covariance (although not invariance, so that the amplitudes themselves are not dual conformal). Finally, we argue that the one-loop amplitudes of maximal 3d super Yang-Mills can be reduced to scalar box diagrams and evaluate these diagrams using dimensional regularization. We find that the one-loop MHV amplitudes vanish and the one-loop non-MHV amplitudes are finite.

hep-th↗

arXiv2012

MHV diagrams in twistor space and the twistor action

MHV diagrams give an efficient Feynman diagram-like formalism for calculating gauge theory scattering amplitudes on momentum space. Although they arise as the Feynman diagrams from an action on twistor space in an axial gauge, the main ingredients were previously expressed only in momentum space and momentum twistor space. Here we show how the formalism can be elegantly derived and expressed entirely in twistor space. This brings out the underlying superconformal invariance of the framework (up to the choice of a reference twistor used to define the axial gauge) and makes the twistor support transparent. Our treatment is largely independent of signature, although we focus on Lorentz signature. Starting from the N=4 super-Yang-Mills twistor action, we obtain the propagator for the anti-holomorphic Dolbeault-operator as a delta function imposing collinear support with the reference twistor defining the axial gauge. The MHV vertices are also expressed in terms of similar delta functions. We obtain concrete formulae for tree-level N^{k}MHV diagrams as a product of MHV amplitudes with an R-invariant for each propagator; here the R-invariant manifests superconformal as opposed to dual-superconformal invariance. This gives the expected explicit support on k+1 lines linked by k further lines associated to the propagators. The R-invariants arising correspond to those obtained in the dual conformal invariant momentum twistor version of the formalism, but differences arise in the specification of the boundary terms. Surprisingly, in this framework, some finite loop integrals can be performed as simply as those for tree diagrams.

hep-th↗

arXiv2011

A Proof of the Supersymmetric Correlation Function / Wilson Loop Correspondence

We prove that in the limit when its insertion points become pairwise null-separated, the ratio of certain n-point correlation functions in N=4 SYM is equal to a supersymmetric Wilson loop on twistor space, acting in the adjoint representation. In the planar limit, each of these objects reduces to the square of the complete n-particle planar superamplitude. Our proof is at the level of the integrand.

hep-th↗