Related papers: Combinatorics of the geometry of Wilson loop diagr…
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…
We generalize modern ideas about the duality between Wilson loops and scattering amplitudes in ${\cal N}=4$ SYM to large $N$ QCD by deriving a general relation between QCD meson scattering amplitudes and Wilson loops. We then investigate…
A basis shape locus takes as input data a zero/nonzero pattern in an $n \times k$ matrix, which is equivalent to a presentation of a transversal matroid. The locus is defined as the set of points in the Grassmannian of $k$ planes in…
Target space symmetries are studied for orbifold compactified string theories containing Wilson line background fields. The symmetries determined are for those moduli which contribute to the string loop threshold corrections of the gauge…
We study supersymmetric Wilson loop operators in four-dimensional N=4 super Yang-Mills theory. We show that the contour of a supersymmetric Wilson loop is either an orbit of some conformal transformation of the space-time (case I), or an…
Perturbative computations of the expectation value of the Wilson loop in N=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory are reported. For the two special cases of a circular loop and a pair of anti-parallel lines, it is shown that the sum of an…
A novel understanding of scattering amplitudes in terms of on-shell diagrams and positive Grassmannian has been recently established for four dimensional Yang-Mills theories and three dimensional Chern-Simons theories of ABJM type. We give…
We introduce a binary matroid M(IAS(G)) associated with a looped simple graph G. M(IAS(G)) classifies G up to local equivalence, and determines the delta-matroid and isotropic system associated with G. Moreover, a parametrized form of its…
We present an algorithm to express Wilson lines that are defined on piecewise linear paths in function of their individual segments, reducing the number of diagrams needed to be calculated. The important step lies in the observation that…
The cross-ratios do not uniquely fix the class of conformally equivalent configurations of null polygons. In view of applications to Wilson loops and scattering amplitudes we characterise all conformal classes of null hexagon configurations…
In previous investigations, it was found that four-sided polygonal light-like Wilson loops in ABJM theory calculated to two-loop order have the same form as the corresponding Wilson loop in N = 4 SYM at one-loop order. Here we study…
We propose a non-perturbative formulation of planar scattering amplitudes in N=4 SYM or, equivalently, polygonal Wilson loops. The construction is based on the OPE approach and introduces a new decomposition of the Wilson loop in terms of…
When G is a product of orthogonal, unitary and symplectic groups, we show that the Wilson loops generate a dense subalgebra of continuous observables on the configuration space of lattice gauge theory with structure group G.
We study the circular Wilson loop in the symmetric representation of U(N) in $\mathcal{N} = 4$ super-Yang-Mills (SYM). In the large N limit, we computed the exponentially-suppressed corrections for strong coupling, which suggests…
We consider the duality between the four-dimensional S-matrix of planar maximally supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory and the expectation value of polygonal shaped Wilson loops in the same theory. We extend the duality to amplitudes with…
Several properties of the isotropic matroid of a looped simple graph are presented. Results include a characterization of the multimatroids that are associated with isotropic matroids and several ways in which the isotropic matroid of G…
We elaborate on a non-perturbative formulation of scattering amplitudes/null polygonal Wilson loops in planar N=4 Super-Yang-Mills theory. The construction is based on a decomposition of the Wilson loop into elementary building blocks named…
We classify bosonic $\mathcal{N}=(2,2)$ supersymmetric Wilson loops on arbitrary backgrounds with vector-like R-symmetry. These can be defined on any smooth contour and come in two forms which are universal across all backgrounds. We show…
We primarily investigate the properties of characteristic polynomials of semimatroids. In particular, we provide a combinatorial interpretation of their coefficients, generalizing the Whitney's Broken Circuit Theorem. We also prove that the…
In maximally supersymmetric four-dimensional gauge theories planar on-shell diagrams are closely related to the positive Grassmannian and the cell decomposition of it into the union of so called positroid cells \cite{A}. We establish that…