Self-Dual Gauge Theory from the Top Down
Abstract
We introduce a family of dualities between certain non-supersymmetric self-dual gauge theories on a large class of self-dual asymptotically flat backgrounds, and the large limit of an independently defined chiral defect CFT. Our construction goes via twisted holography for the type I topological string on a Calabi-Yau five-fold which fibres over twistor space. In particular, we show that single-trace operators of the defect CFT are in bijection with states of the celestial chiral algebra. We match the operator products of these states with the collinear splitting amplitudes of the self-dual gauge theory up to one-loop. Assigning vacuum expectations to central operators in the boundary theory computes bulk amplitudes on self-dual backgrounds. We are able to extract form factors from these amplitudes, which we use to give a simple closed formula for certain -point two-loop all amplitudes in gauge theory coupled to bifundamental massless fermions.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2412.02680,
title = {Self-Dual Gauge Theory from the Top Down},
author = {Roland Bittleston and Kevin Costello and Keyou Zeng},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2412.02680},
year = {2026}
}
Comments
122 pages + 18 page appendix, 22 figures; v2: computational error pointed out by Anthony Morales corrected; v3: published in CIMP