Local Spacetime Physics from the Grassmannian

A duality has recently been conjectured between all leading singularities of n-particle N^(k-2)MHV scattering amplitudes in N=4 SYM and the residues of a contour integral with a natural measure over the Grassmannian G(k,n). In this note we show that a simple contour deformation converts the sum of Grassmannian residues associated with the BCFW expansion of NMHV tree amplitudes to the CSW expansion of the same amplitude. We propose that for general k the same deformation yields the (k-2) parameter Risager expansion. We establish this equivalence for all MHV-bar amplitudes and show that the Risager degrees of freedom are non-trivially determined by the GL(k-2) "gauge" degrees of freedom in the Grassmannian. The Risager expansion is known to recursively construct the CSW expansion for all tree amplitudes, and given that the CSW expansion follows directly from the (super) Yang-Mills Lagrangian in light-cone gauge, this contour deformation allows us to directly see the emergence of local space-time physics from the Grassmannian.Comment: 22 pages, 13 figures; v2: minor updates, typos correcte

Unification of Residues and Grassmannian Dualities

The conjectured duality relating all-loop leading singularities of n-particle N^(k-2)MHV scattering amplitudes in N=4 SYM to a simple contour integral over the Grassmannian G(k,n) makes all the symmetries of the theory manifest. Every residue is individually Yangian invariant, but does not have a local space-time interpretation--only a special sum over residues gives physical amplitudes. In this paper we show that the sum over residues giving tree amplitudes can be unified into a single algebraic variety, which we explicitly construct for all NMHV and N^2MHV amplitudes. Remarkably, this allows the contour integral to have a "particle interpretation" in the Grassmannian, where higher-point amplitudes can be constructed from lower-point ones by adding one particle at a time, with soft limits manifest. We move on to show that the connected prescription for tree amplitudes in Witten's twistor string theory also admits a Grassmannian particle interpretation, where the integral over the Grassmannian localizes over the Veronese map from G(2,n) to G(k,n). These apparently very different theories are related by a natural deformation with a parameter t that smoothly interpolates between them. For NMHV amplitudes, we use a simple residue theorem to prove t-independence of the result, thus establishing a novel kind of duality between these theories.Comment: 56 pages, 11 figures; v2: typos corrected, minor improvement

Amplitudes at Weak Coupling as Polytopes in AdS_5

We show that one-loop scalar box functions can be interpreted as volumes of geodesic tetrahedra embedded in a copy of AdS_5 that has dual conformal space-time as boundary. When the tetrahedron is space-like, it lies in a totally geodesic hyperbolic three-space inside AdS_5, with its four vertices on the boundary. It is a classical result that the volume of such a tetrahedron is given by the Bloch-Wigner dilogarithm and this agrees with the standard physics formulae for such box functions. The combinations of box functions that arise in the n-particle one-loop MHV amplitude in N=4 super Yang-Mills correspond to the volume of a three-dimensional polytope without boundary, all of whose vertices are attached to a null polygon (which in other formulations is interpreted as a Wilson loop) at infinity.Comment: 16 pages, 5 figure

The All-Loop Integrand For Scattering Amplitudes in Planar N=4 SYM

We give an explicit recursive formula for the all L-loop integrand for scattering amplitudes in N=4 SYM in the planar limit, manifesting the full Yangian symmetry of the theory. This generalizes the BCFW recursion relation for tree amplitudes to all loop orders, and extends the Grassmannian duality for leading singularities to the full amplitude. It also provides a new physical picture for the meaning of loops, associated with canonical operations for removing particles in a Yangian-invariant way. Loop amplitudes arise from the "entangled" removal of pairs of particles, and are naturally presented as an integral over lines in momentum-twistor space. As expected from manifest Yangian-invariance, the integrand is given as a sum over non-local terms, rather than the familiar decomposition in terms of local scalar integrals with rational coefficients. Knowing the integrands explicitly, it is straightforward to express them in local forms if desired; this turns out to be done most naturally using a novel basis of chiral, tensor integrals written in momentum-twistor space, each of which has unit leading singularities. As simple illustrative examples, we present a number of new multi-loop results written in local form, including the 6- and 7-point 2-loop NMHV amplitudes. Very concise expressions are presented for all 2-loop MHV amplitudes, as well as the 5-point 3-loop MHV amplitude. The structure of the loop integrand strongly suggests that the integrals yielding the physical amplitudes are "simple", and determined by IR-anomalies. We briefly comment on extending these ideas to more general planar theories.Comment: 46 pages; v2: minor changes, references adde

Tree-Level Formalism

We review two novel techniques used to calculate tree-level scattering amplitudes efficiently: MHV diagrams, and on-shell recursion relations. For the MHV diagrams, we consider applications to tree-level amplitudes and focus in particular on the N=4 supersymmetric formulation. We also briefly describe the derivation of loop amplitudes using MHV diagrams. For the recursion relations, after presenting their general proof, we discuss several applications to massless theories with and without supersymmetry, to theories with massive particles, and to graviton amplitudes in General Relativity. This article is an invited review for a special issue of Journal of Physics A devoted to "Scattering Amplitudes in Gauge Theories".Comment: 40 pages, 8 figures, invited review for a special issue of Journal of Physics A devoted to "Scattering Amplitudes in Gauge Theories", R. Roiban(ed), M. Spradlin(ed), A. Volovich(ed); v2: minor corrections, references adde

Hidden Simplicity of Gauge Theory Amplitudes

These notes were given as lectures at the CERN Winter School on Supergravity, Strings and Gauge Theory 2010. We describe the structure of scattering amplitudes in gauge theories, focussing on the maximally supersymmetric theory to highlight the hidden symmetries which appear. Using the BCFW recursion relations we solve for the tree-level S-matrix in N=4 super Yang-Mills theory, and describe how it produces a sum of invariants of a large symmetry algebra. We review amplitudes in the planar theory beyond tree-level, describing the connection between amplitudes and Wilson loops, and discuss the implications of the hidden symmetries.Comment: 46 pages, 15 figures. v2 ref added, typos fixe

Basics of Generalized Unitarity

We review generalized unitarity as a means for obtaining loop amplitudes from on-shell tree amplitudes. The method is generally applicable to both supersymmetric and non-supersymmetric amplitudes, including non-planar contributions. Here we focus mainly on N=4 Yang-Mills theory, in the context of on-shell superspaces. Given the need for regularization at loop level, we also review a six-dimensional helicity-based superspace formalism and its application to dimensional and massive regularizations. An important feature of the unitarity method is that it offers a means for carrying over any identified tree-level property of on-shell amplitudes to loop level, though sometimes in a modified form. We illustrate this with examples of dual conformal symmetry and a recently discovered duality between color and kinematics.Comment: 37 pages, 10 figures. Invited review for a special issue of Journal of Physics A devoted to "Scattering Amplitudes in Gauge Theories", R. Roiban(ed), M. Spradlin(ed), A. Volovich(ed

Generic multiloop methods and application to N=4 super-Yang-Mills

We review some recent additions to the tool-chest of techniques for finding compact integrand representations of multiloop gauge-theory amplitudes - including non-planar contributions - applicable for N=4 super-Yang-Mills in four and higher dimensions, as well as for theories with less supersymmetry. We discuss a general organization of amplitudes in terms of purely cubic graphs, review the method of maximal cuts, as well as some special D-dimensional recursive cuts, and conclude by describing the efficient organization of amplitudes resulting from the conjectured duality between color and kinematic structures on constituent graphs.Comment: 42 pages, 18 figures, invited review for a special issue of Journal of Physics A devoted to "Scattering Amplitudes in Gauge Theories", v2 minor corrections, v3 added reference