arXiv subjects

Song He

Publications and source records attributed to Song He.

At least 73 records · Page 4Linked to original sources

arXiv2025

$T\overline{T}$ Deformation: Introduction and Some Recent Advances

This review explores recent advances in the theory of $T\bar{T}$ deformation, an irrelevant yet solvable deformation of quantum field theories defined via the quadratic form of the energy-momentum tensor. It addresses classical and quantum aspects, highlighting significant developments across various fields, including field theory, holography, and string theory. Classically, $T\bar{T}$ deformation manifests through multiple geometric interpretations, notably random geometry, Jackiw-Teitelboim-like gravity, and uniform light-cone gauge frameworks. For quantum aspects, the deformation introduces notable features such as non-locality, UV-IR mixing, solvable renormalization structures, and intriguing modifications to correlation functions and entanglement properties. Furthermore, the paper examines the profound relationship between $T\bar{T}$ deformation and holography, particularly within the mixed boundary conditions/cutoff AdS holography proposal and holographic entanglement entropy. Connections to string theory through single-trace deformations and their holographic duals further reveal the deformed structure of the worldsheet. This review synthesizes recent developments and outlines potential directions for future research in the study of $T\bar{T}$-like deformation.

hep-th↗

arXiv2025

Scalar-Scaffolded Gluons and the Combinatorial Origins of Yang-Mills Theory

We present a new formulation for Yang-Mills scattering amplitudes in any number of dimensions and at any loop order, based on the same combinatorial and binary-geometric ideas in kinematic space recently used to give an all-order description of Tr $ϕ^3$ theory. We propose that in a precise sense the amplitudes for a suitably "stringy" form of these two theories are identical, up to a simple shift of kinematic variables. This connection is made possible by describing the amplitudes for $n$ gluons via a "scalar scaffolding", arising from the scattering of $2n$ colored scalars coming in $n$ distinct pairs of flavors fusing to produce the gluons. Fundamental properties of the "$u$-variables", describing the "binary geometry" for surfaces appearing in the topological expansion, magically guarantee that the kinematically shifted Tr $ϕ^3$ amplitudes satisfy the physical properties needed to be interpreted as scaffolded gluons. These include multilinearity, gauge invariance, and factorization on tree- and loop- level gluon cuts. Our "stringy" scaffolded gluon amplitudes coincide with amplitudes in the bosonic string for extra-dimensional gluon polarizations at tree-level, but differ (and are simpler) at loop-level. We provide many checks on our proposal, including matching non-trivial leading singularities through two loops. The simple counting problem underlying the $u$ variables autonomously "knows" about everything needed to convert colored scalar to gluon amplitudes, exposing a striking "discovery" of Yang-Mills amplitudes from elementary combinatorial ideas in kinematic space.

hep-th↗

arXiv2025

Surface Kinematics and "The" Yang-Mills Integrand

It has been a long-standing challenge to define a canonical loop integrand for non-supersymmetric gluon scattering amplitudes in the planar limit. Naive integrands are inflicted with $1/0$ ambiguities associated with tadpoles and massless external bubbles, which destroy integrand-level gauge invariance as well as consistent on-shell factorization on single loop-cuts. In this letter, we show that this essentially kinematical obstruction to defining "the" integrand for Yang-Mills theory has a structural solution, handed to us by the formulation of gluon amplitudes in terms of curves on surfaces. This defines "surface kinematics" generalizing momenta, making it possible to define "the" integrand satisfying both a (surface generalized) notion of gauge-invariance and consistent loop-cuts. The integrand also vanishes at infinity in appropriate directions, allowing it to be recursively computed for non-supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory in any number of dimensions. We illustrate these ideas through one loop for all multiplicity, and for the simplest two-loop integrand.

hep-th↗

arXiv2025

The Four-Point Correlator of Planar sYM at Twelve Loops

We determine the 4-point correlation function and amplitude in planar, maximally supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory to 12 loops. We find that the recently-introduced 'double-triangle' rule in fact implies the previously described square and pentagon rules; and when applied to 12 loops, it fully determines the 11-loop correlator and fixes all but 3 of the (22,024,902) 12-loop coefficients; these remaining coefficients can be subsequently fixed using the '(single-)triangle' rule. Not only do we confirm the Catalan conjecture for anti-prism graphs, but we discover evidence for a greatly generalized Catalan conjecture for the coefficients of all polygon-framed fishnet graphs. We provide all contributions through 12 loops as ancillary files to this work.

hep-th↗

arXiv2025

Holographic Correlators of Boundary/Crosscap CFTs in Two Dimensions

This work explores holographic correlators within the frameworks of two-dimensional Boundary Conformal Field Theory (BCFT) and Crosscap Conformal Field Theory (XCFT). Utilizing the AdS/CFT correspondence, we compute stress tensor correlators in BCFT, considering both tensionless and tensionful end-of-the-world (EOW) brane scenarios. We derive recurrence relations for two-point and three-point correlators and examine the impact of non-zero brane tension on correlators. Extending these results, we investigate the holographic duals of XCFTs, presenting explicit scalar and stress tensor correlator computations on projective geometries such as $\mathbb{RP}^2$. Additionally, we analyze stress tensor correlators at a finite cutoff, uncovering deformations to one-point and two-point functions induced by the cutoff. Our findings provide novel insights into the holographic structures of BCFT and XCFT while laying the groundwork for future research into higher-dimensional extensions.

hep-th↗

arXiv2025

The Cusp Limit of Correlators and A New Graphical Bootstrap for Correlators/Amplitudes to Eleven Loops

We consider the universal behavior of half-BPS correlators in $\mathcal{N}=4$ super-Yang-Mills in the cusp limit where two consecutive separations $x_{12}^2,x_{23}^2$ become lightlike. Through the Lagrangian insertion procedure, the Sudakov double-logarithmic divergence of the $n$-point correlator is related to the $(n+1)$-point correlator where the inserted Lagrangian "pinches" to the soft-collinear region of the cusp. We formulate this constraint as a new graphical rulefor the $f$-graphs of the four-point correlator, which turns out to be the most constraining rule known so far. By exploiting this single graphical rule, we bootstrap the planar integrand of the four-point correlator up to ten loops ($n=14$) and fix all 22024902 but one coefficient at eleven loops ($n=15$); the remaining coefficient is then fixed using the triangle rule. We verify the "Catalan conjecture" for the coefficients of the family of $f$-graphs known as "anti-prisms" where the coefficient of the twelve-loop ($n=16$) anti-prism is found to be $-42$ by a local analysis of the bootstrap equations. We also comment on the implication of our graphical rule for the non-planar contributions.

hep-th↗

arXiv2025

On universal splittings of tree-level particle and string scattering amplitudes

In this paper, we study the newly discovered universal splitting behavior for tree-level scattering amplitudes of particles and strings~\cite{Cao:2024gln}: when a set of Mandelstam variables (and Lorentz products involving polarizations for gluons/gravitons) vanish, the $n$-point amplitude factorizes as the product of two lower-point currents with $n{+}3$ external legs in total. We refer to any such subspace of the kinematic space of $n$ massless momenta as "2-split kinematics", where the scattering potential for string amplitudes and the corresponding scattering equations for particle amplitudes nicely split into two parts. Based on these, we provide a systematic and detailed study of the splitting behavior for essentially all ingredients which appear as integrands for open- and closed-string amplitudes as well as Cachazo-He-Yuan (CHY) formulas, including Parke-Taylor factors, correlators in superstring and bosonic string theories, and CHY integrands for a variety of amplitudes of scalars, gluons and gravitons. These results then immediately lead to the splitting behavior of string and particle amplitudes in a wide range of theories, including bi-adjoint $ϕ^3$ (with string extension known as $Z$ and $J$ integrals), non-linear sigma model, Dirac-Born-Infeld, the special Galileon, etc., as well as Yang-Mills and Einstein gravity (with bosonic and superstring extensions). Our results imply and extend some other factorization behavior of tree amplitudes considered recently, including smooth splittings~\cite{Cachazo:2021wsz} and factorizations near zeros~\cite{Arkani-Hamed:2023swr}, to all these theories. A special case of splitting also yields soft theorems for gluons/gravitons as well as analogous soft behavior for Goldstone particles near their Adler zeros.

hep-th↗

arXiv2024

Hidden zeros for particle/string amplitudes and the unity of colored scalars, pions and gluons

Recent years have seen the emergence of a new understanding of scattering amplitudes in the simplest theory of colored scalar particles - the Tr$(ϕ^3)$ theory - based on combinatorial and geometric ideas in the kinematic space of scattering data. In this paper we report a surprise: far from the toy model it appears to be, the ''stringy'' Tr$(ϕ^3)$ amplitudes secretly contain the scattering amplitudes for pions, as well as non-supersymmetric gluons, in any number of dimensions. The amplitudes for the different theories are given by one and the same function, related by a simple shift of the kinematics. This discovery was spurred by another fundamental observation: the tree-level Tr$(ϕ^3)$ field theory amplitudes have a hidden pattern of zeros when a special set of non-planar Mandelstam invariants is set to zero. Furthermore, near these zeros, the amplitudes simplify, by factoring into a non-trivial product of smaller amplitudes. Remarkably the amplitudes for pions and gluons are observed to also vanish in the same kinematical locus. These properties further generalize to the ''stringy'' Tr$(ϕ^3)$ amplitudes. There is a unique shift of the kinematic data that preserves the zeros, and this shift is precisely the one that unifies colored scalars, pions, and gluons into a single object. We will focus in this paper on explaining the hidden zeros and factorization properties and the connection between all the colored theories, working for simplicity at tree-level. Subsequent works will describe this new formulation for the Non-linear Sigma Model and non-supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory, at all loop orders.

hep-th↗

arXiv2024

NLSM $\subset$ Tr$(ϕ^3)$

Scattering amplitudes for the simplest theory of colored scalar particles - the Tr($Φ^3$) theory - have recently been the subject of active investigations. In this letter we describe an unanticipated wider implication of this work: the Tr($Φ^3$) theory secretly contains Non-linear Sigma Model (NLSM) amplitudes to all loop orders. The NLSM amplitudes are obtained from Tr$(Φ^3)$ amplitudes by a unique shift of kinematic variables. We show that this shifted kinematics produces amplitudes for a cubic theory with a linear term in potential, with extrema spontaneously breaking $U(N) \to U(N-k) \times U(k)$. The Goldstone amplitudes for this theory coincide with those of pions in the $U(N) \times U(N) \to U(N)$ chiral Lagrangian to all orders in the planar limit. We also give a purely on-shell understanding of this correspondence, showing integrands defined by the kinematic shifts have the correct residues on poles and appropriately produce the Adler zero. Finally, we discuss how similar kinematic shifts produce certain infinite classes of mixed amplitudes of pions and Tr($Φ^3$) scalars, most of which are not interpretable from the Lagrangian description.

hep-th↗

arXiv2024

On one-loop amplitudes in gauge theories

We propose a new ``universal expansion" for one-loop amplitudes with arbitrary number of gluons in $D$ dimensions, which holds for general gauge theories with gluons/fermions/scalars in the loop, including pure and supersymmetric Yang-Mills theories. It expresses the $n$-gluon amplitudes as a linear combination of universal scalar-loop amplitudes with $n{-}m$ gluons and $m$ scalars, multiplied by gauge-invariant building blocks (defined for general gauge theories); the integrands of these scalar-loop amplitudes are given in terms of tree-level objects attached to the scalar loop, or by differential operators acting on the most important part which is proportional to $D$ (with $m=0$). We present closed-formula for these one-loop integrands and prove them by showing that the single cuts are correctly reproduced by the gluing of an additional pair of gluons (fermions/scalars) in the forward limit, plus $n$ gluons in a tree amplitude.

hep-th↗

arXiv2024

Exploring Optimal Transport-Based Multi-Grained Alignments for Text-Molecule Retrieval

The field of bioinformatics has seen significant progress, making the cross-modal text-molecule retrieval task increasingly vital. This task focuses on accurately retrieving molecule structures based on textual descriptions, by effectively aligning textual descriptions and molecules to assist researchers in identifying suitable molecular candidates. However, many existing approaches overlook the details inherent in molecule sub-structures. In this work, we introduce the Optimal TRansport-based Multi-grained Alignments model (ORMA), a novel approach that facilitates multi-grained alignments between textual descriptions and molecules. Our model features a text encoder and a molecule encoder. The text encoder processes textual descriptions to generate both token-level and sentence-level representations, while molecules are modeled as hierarchical heterogeneous graphs, encompassing atom, motif, and molecule nodes to extract representations at these three levels. A key innovation in ORMA is the application of Optimal Transport (OT) to align tokens with motifs, creating multi-token representations that integrate multiple token alignments with their corresponding motifs. Additionally, we employ contrastive learning to refine cross-modal alignments at three distinct scales: token-atom, multitoken-motif, and sentence-molecule, ensuring that the similarities between correctly matched text-molecule pairs are maximized while those of unmatched pairs are minimized. To our knowledge, this is the first attempt to explore alignments at both the motif and multi-token levels. Experimental results on the ChEBI-20 and PCdes datasets demonstrate that ORMA significantly outperforms existing state-of-the-art (SOTA) models.

cs.IR↗

arXiv2024

Towards Cross-Modal Text-Molecule Retrieval with Better Modality Alignment

Cross-modal text-molecule retrieval model aims to learn a shared feature space of the text and molecule modalities for accurate similarity calculation, which facilitates the rapid screening of molecules with specific properties and activities in drug design. However, previous works have two main defects. First, they are inadequate in capturing modality-shared features considering the significant gap between text sequences and molecule graphs. Second, they mainly rely on contrastive learning and adversarial training for cross-modality alignment, both of which mainly focus on the first-order similarity, ignoring the second-order similarity that can capture more structural information in the embedding space. To address these issues, we propose a novel cross-modal text-molecule retrieval model with two-fold improvements. Specifically, on the top of two modality-specific encoders, we stack a memory bank based feature projector that contain learnable memory vectors to extract modality-shared features better. More importantly, during the model training, we calculate four kinds of similarity distributions (text-to-text, text-to-molecule, molecule-to-molecule, and molecule-to-text similarity distributions) for each instance, and then minimize the distance between these similarity distributions (namely second-order similarity losses) to enhance cross-modal alignment. Experimental results and analysis strongly demonstrate the effectiveness of our model. Particularly, our model achieves SOTA performance, outperforming the previously-reported best result by 6.4%.

cs.IR↗

arXiv2024

Landau-based Schubert analysis

We revisit the conjectural method called Schubert analysis for generating the alphabet of symbol letters for Feynman integrals, which was based on geometries of intersecting lines associated with corresponding cut diagrams. We explain the effectiveness of this somewhat mysterious method by relating such geometries to the corresponding Landau singularities, which also amounts to ``uplifting" Landau singularities of a Feynman integral to its symbol letters. We illustrate this {\it Landau-based Schubert analysis} using various multi-loop Feynman integrals in four dimensions and present an automated {\ttfamily Mathematica} notebook for it. We then apply the method to a simplified problem of studying alphabets of physical quantities such as scattering amplitudes and form factors in planar ${\cal N}=4$ super-Yang-Mills. By focusing on a small set of Landau diagrams (as opposed to all relevant Feynman integrals), we show how this method nicely produces the two-loop alphabet of $n$-point MHV amplitudes and that of the $n=4$ MHV form factors. A byproduct of our analysis is an explicit representation of any symbol alphabet obtained this way as the union of various type-$A$ cluster algebras.

hep-th↗

arXiv2024

All-loop geometry for four-point correlation functions

In this letter, we consider a positive geometry conjectured to encode the loop integrand of four-point stress-energy correlators in planar $\mathcal{N}=4$ super Yang-Mills. Beginning with four lines in twistor space, we characterize a positive subspace to which an $\ell$-loop geometry is attached. The loop geometry then consists of $\ell$ lines in twistor space satisfying positivity conditions among themselves and with respect to the base. Consequently, the $\textit{loop geometry}$ can be viewed as fibration over a $\textit{tree geometry}$. The fibration naturally dissects the base into chambers, in which the degree-$4 \ell$ loop form is unique and distinct for each chamber. Interestingly, up to three loops, the chambers are simply organized by the six ordering of $x^2_{1,2}x^2_{3,4}$, $x^2_{1,4}x^2_{2,3}$ and $x^2_{1,3}x^2_{2,4}$. We explicitly verify our conjecture by computing the loop-forms in terms of a basis of planar conformal integrals up to $\ell=3$, which indeed yield correct loop integrands for the four-point correlator.

hep-th↗

arXiv2024

Loop corrections versus marginal deformation in celestial holography

Four-dimensional all-loop amplitudes in QED and gravity exhibit universal Infrared (IR) singularities with a factorization structure. This structure is governed by tree amplitudes and a universal IR-divergent factor representing the exchange of soft particles between external lines. This letter offers a precise dual interpretation of these universal IR-divergent factors within celestial holography. Considering the tree amplitude as the foundation of the celestial conformal field theory (CCFT), these universal factors correspond to marginal deformations with a \textit{double-current} construction in the CCFT. Remarkably, a novel geometric representation of these deformations through topological gauging provides an exact description of transitions within bulk vacuum moduli spaces which extends the celestial holography beyond the perturbative level. Our findings establish a concrete dictionary for celestial holography and offer a holographic lens to understand loop corrections in scattering amplitudes.

hep-th↗

arXiv2024

Geometric formulation of generalized root-$T\bar{T}$ deformations

We develop a generic geometric formalism that incorporates both $T\bar{T}$-like and root-$T\bar{T}$-like deformations in arbitrary dimensions. This framework applies to a wide family of stress-energy tensor perturbations and encompasses various well-known field theories. Building upon the recently proposed correspondence between Ricci-based gravity and $T\bar{T}$-like deformations, we further extend this duality to include root-$T\bar{T}$-like perturbations. This refinement extends the potential applications of our approach and contributes to a deeper exploration of the interplay between stress tensor perturbations and gravitational dynamics. Among the various original outcomes detailed in this article, we have also obtained a deformation of the flat Jackiw-Teitelboim gravity action.

hep-th↗

arXiv2024

A universal splitting of string and particle scattering amplitudes

We propose a new splitting behavior of tree-level string/particle amplitudes for scalars, gluons and gravitons. We identify certain subspaces in the space of Mandelstam variables, where the universal Koba-Nielsen factor splits into two parts (each with an off-shell leg). Both open- and closed-string amplitudes with Parke-Taylor factors naturally factorize into two stringy ${\it currents}$, which implies the splitting of bi-adjoint $ϕ^3$ amplitudes and via a simple deformation to unified stringy amplitudes, the splitting of amplitudes in the non-linear sigma model and Yang-Mills-scalar theory; the same splitting holds for scalar amplitudes without color such as the special Galileon. Remarkably, if we impose similar constraints on Lorentz products involving polarizations, gluon and graviton amplitudes in bosonic string and superstring theories also split into two (stringy) currents. A special case of the splitting implies soft theorems, and more generally it extends recently proposed smooth splittings and new factorizations near zeros to all these theories.

hep-th↗

arXiv2024

Kinematic numerators from the worldsheet: cubic trees from labelled trees

In this note we revisit the problem of explicitly computing tree-level scattering amplitudes in various theories in any dimension from worldsheet formulas. The latter are known to produce cubic-tree expansion of tree amplitudes with kinematic numerators automatically satisfying Jacobi-identities, once any half-integrand on the worldsheet is reduced to logarithmic functions. We review a natural class of worldsheet functions called "Cayley functions", which are in one-to-one correspondence with labelled trees, and natural expansions of known half-integrands onto them with coefficients that are particularly compact building blocks of kinematic numerators. We present a general formula expressing kinematic numerators of all cubic trees as linear combinations of coefficients of labelled trees, which satisfy Jacobi identities by construction and include the usual combinations in terms of master numerators as a special case. Our results provide an efficient algorithm, which is implemented in a Mathematica package, for computing all tree amplitudes in theories including non-linear sigma model, special Galileon, Yang-Mills-scalar, Einstein-Yang-Mills and Dirac-Born-Infeld.

hep-th↗