English

All-loop singularities of scattering amplitudes in massless planar theories

High Energy Physics - Theory 2018-08-29 v2

Abstract

In massless quantum field theories the Landau equations are invariant under graph operations familiar from the theory of electrical circuits. Using a theorem on the YY-Δ\Delta reducibility of planar circuits we prove that the set of first-type Landau singularities of an nn-particle scattering amplitude in any massless planar theory, in any spacetime dimension DD, at any finite loop order in perturbation theory, is a subset of those of a certain nn-particle (n2)2/4\lfloor{(n{-}2)^2/4}\rfloor-loop "ziggurat" graph. We determine this singularity locus explicitly for D=4D=4 and n=6n=6 and find that it corresponds precisely to the vanishing of the symbol letters familiar from the hexagon bootstrap in SYM theory. Further implications for SYM theory are discussed.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1805.11617,
  title  = {All-loop singularities of scattering amplitudes in massless planar theories},
  author = {Igor Prlina and Marcus Spradlin and Stefan Stanojevic},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1805.11617},
  year   = {2018}
}

Comments

6 pages, 4 figures; v2: minor improvements and clarifications, including an expanded section VIII