arXiv subjects

Piotr Tourkine

Publications and source records attributed to Piotr Tourkine.

28 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2017

Higher-loop amplitude monodromy relations in string and gauge theory

The monodromy relations in string theory provide a powerful and elegant formalism to understand some of the deepest properties of tree-level field theory amplitudes, like the color-kinematics duality. This duality has been instrumental in tremendous progress on the computations of loop amplitudes in quantum field theory, but a higher-loop generalisation of the monodromy construction was lacking. In this letter, we extend the monodromy relations to higher loops in open string theory. Our construction, based on a contour deformation argument inside open string diagrams, leads to new identities that relate planar and non-planar topologies in string theory. We write one and two-loop monodromy formulae explicitly at any multiplicity. In the field theory limit, at one-loop we obtain identities that reproduce known results. At two loops, we check our formulae by unitarity in the case of the four-point N=4 super-Yang-Mills amplitude.

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arXiv2017

Tropical Amplitudes

In this work, we argue that the $α'\to 0$ limit of closed string theory scattering amplitudes is a tropical limit. The motivation is to develop a technology to systematize the extraction of Feynman graphs from string theory amplitudes at higher genus. An important technical input from tropical geometry is the use of tropical theta functions with characteristics to rigorously derive the worldline limit of the worldsheet propagator. This enables us to perform a non-trivial computation at two loops: we derive the tropical form of the integrand of the genus-two four-graviton type II string amplitude, which matches the direct field theory computations. At the mathematical level, this limit is an implementation of the correspondence between the moduli space of Riemann surfaces and the tropical moduli space.

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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.

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arXiv2016

On the null origin of the ambitwistor string

In this paper we present the null string origin of the ambitwistor string. Classically, the null string is the tensionless limit of string theory, and so too is the Ambitwistor string. Both have as constraint algebra the Galilean Conformal Algebra in two dimensions. But something interesting happens in the quantum theory since there is an ambiguity in quantizing the null string. We show that, given a particular choice of quantization scheme and a particular gauge, the null string coincides with the ambitwistor string both classically and quantum mechanically. We also show that the same holds for the spinning versions of the null string and Ambitwistor string. With these results we clarify the relationship between the Ambitwistor string, the null string, the usual string and the Hohm-Siegel-Zwiebach theory.

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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.

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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.

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arXiv2014

Infrared behaviour of the one-loop scattering equations and supergravity integrands

The recently introduced ambitwistor string led to a striking proposal for one-loop maximal supergravity amplitudes, localised on the solutions of the ambitwistor one-loop scattering equations. However, these amplitudes have not yet been explicitly analysed due to the apparent complexity of the equations that determine the localisation. In this paper we propose an analytic solution to the four-point one-loop scattering equations in the infrared (IR) regime of the amplitude. Using this solution, we compute the ambitwistor integrand and demonstrate that it correctly reproduces the four-graviton integrand, in the IR regime. This solution qualitatively extends to n points. To conclude, we explain that the ambitwistor one-loop scattering equations actually correspond to the standard Gross & Mende saddle point.

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arXiv2014

BCJ duality and double copy in the closed string sector

This paper is focused on the loop-level understanding of the Bern-Carrasco-Johansson double copy procedure that relates the integrands of gauge theory and gravity scattering amplitudes. At four points, the first non-trivial example of that construction is one-loop amplitudes in N=2 super-Yang-Mills theory and the symmetric realization of N=4 matter-coupled supergravity. Our approach is to use both field and string theory in parallel to analyze these amplitudes. The closed string provides a natural framework to analyze the BCJ construction, in which the left- and right-moving sectors separately create the color and kinematics at the integrand level. At tree level, in a five-point example, we show that the Mafra-Schlotterer-Stieberger procedure gives a new direct proof of the color-kinematics double copy. We outline the extension of that argument to n points. At loop level, the field-theoretic BCJ construction of N=2 SYM amplitudes introduces new terms, unexpected from the string theory perspective. We discuss to what extent we can relate them to the terms coming from the interactions between left- and right-movers in the string-theoretic gravity construction.

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arXiv2013

One-loop four-graviton amplitudes in N=4 supergravity models

We evaluate in great detail one-loop four-graviton field theory amplitudes in pure N=4 D=4 supergravity. The expressions are obtained by taking the field theory limits of (4,0) and (2,2) space-time supersymmetric string theory models. For each model we extract the contributions of the spin-1 and spin-2 N=4 supermultiplets running in the loop. We show that all of those constructions lead to the same four-dimensional result for the four-graviton amplitudes in pure supergravity even though they come from different string theory models.

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arXiv2012

An R^4 non-renormalisation theorem in N=4 supergravity

We consider the four-graviton amplitudes in CHL constructions providing four-dimensional N=4 models with various numbers of vector multiplets. We show that in these models the two-loop amplitude has a prefactor of d^2R^4. This implies a non-renormalisation theorem for the R^4 term, which forbids the appearance of a three-loop ultraviolet divergence in four dimensions in the four-graviton amplitude. We connect the special nature of the R^4 term to the U(1) anomaly of pure N=4 supergravity.

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