Conformal properties of soft operators -- 2 : Use of null-states
Abstract
Representations of the (Lorentz) conformal group with the soft operators as highest weight vectors have two universal properties, which we clearly state in this paper. Given a soft operator with a certain dimension and spin, the first property is about the existence of "(large) gauge transformation" that acts on the soft operator. The second property is the decoupling of (large) gauge-invariant null-states of the soft operators from the -matrix elements. In each case, the decoupling equation has the form of zero field-strength condition with the soft operator as the (gauge) potential. Null-state decoupling effectively reduces the number of polarisation states of the soft particle and is crucial in deriving soft-theorems from the Ward identities of asymptotic symmetries. To the best of our understanding, these properties are not directly related to the Lorentz invariance of the -matrix or the existence of asymptotic symmetries. We also verify that the results obtained from the decoupling of null-states are consistent with the leading and subleading soft-theorems with finite energy massive and massless particles in the external legs.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1906.01650,
title = {Conformal properties of soft operators -- 2 : Use of null-states},
author = {Shamik Banerjee and Pranjal Pandey},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1906.01650},
year = {2020}
}
Comments
Latex, 13 pages, reference added