In this paper we provide a first attempt towards a toric geometric
interpretation of scattering amplitudes. In recent investigations it has indeed
been proposed that the all-loop integrand of planar N=4 SYM can be represented
in terms of well defined finite objects called on-shell diagrams drawn on
disks. Furthermore it has been shown that the physical information of on-shell
diagrams is encoded in the geometry of auxiliary algebraic varieties called the
totally non negative Grassmannians. In this new formulation the infinite
dimensional symmetry of the theory is manifest and many results, that are quite
tricky to obtain in terms of the standard Lagrangian formulation of the theory,
are instead manifest. In this paper, elaborating on previous results, we
provide another picture of the scattering amplitudes in terms of toric
geometry. In particular we describe in detail the toric varieties associated to
an on-shell diagram, how the singularities of the amplitudes are encoded in
some subspaces of the toric variety, and how this picture maps onto the
Grassmannian description. Eventually we discuss the action of cluster
transformations on the toric varieties. The hope is to provide an alternative
description of the scattering amplitudes that could contribute in the
developing of this very interesting field of research.Comment: 58 pages, 25 figures, typos corrected, a reference added, to be
published in JHE