<p>The scattering amplitudes of string theory exhibit many extraordinary properties. But are they the unique mathematical objects to do so? Recently, it has been shown how the spectrum and amplitudes of open string theory follow directly from the assumptions of faster than power-law falloff at high energies and a property dubbed level truncation. At present there is no analogous principle for closed string scattering, which is famously rigid and naively impervious to modification. In this paper we analytically bootstrap the spectrum and four-point amplitudes of the closed string—together with a parametrized space of deformations—from conditions on high-energy falloff and level truncation. While these deformations exhibit the same Regge scaling as pure gravity, in the tensionless limit they reproduce remarkable extremal amplitudes that have appeared in bottom-up studies of positivity.</p>

United States

Clifford Cheung

Aaron Hillman

Grant N. Remmen

Uniqueness criteria for the Virasoro-Shapiro amplitude

The super BKP (SBKP) hierarchy in fermionic picture is constructed by embedding tensor product of infinite-dimensional Lie superalgebra of type B and Grassmann algebra into Clifford superalgebra. On the basis of bosonic counterpart, we construct the super Baker functions of the SBKP hierarchy and give a bilinear identity represented by it. The super differential operator is introduced and the bilinear identity in terms of the super pseudo-differential operator is shown. Finally, the solutions of non group orbits in the super fermionic Fock space are discussed.

China

Huizhan Chen

The super BKP hierarchy from Clifford super module

We show that the Veneziano amplitude of string theory is the unique solution to an analytically solvable bootstrap problem. Uniqueness follows from two assumptions: faster than power-law falloff in high-energy scattering and the existence of some infinite sequence in momentum transfer at which higher-spin exchanges cancel. The string amplitude—including the mass spectrum—is an output of this bootstrap. If the amplitude merely vanishes at high energies, the solution is a three-parameter family containing the Veneziano, Coon, and hypergeometric amplitudes, and more.

Bootstrap Principle for the Spectrum and Scattering of Strings

We explore generalized symmetry in the context of nonlinear dynamical gravity. Our basic strategy is to transcribe known results from Yang-Mills theory directly to gravity via the tetrad formalism, which recasts general relativity as a gauge theory of the local Lorentz group. By analogy, we deduce that gravity exhibits a one-form symmetry implemented by an operator U  α  labeled by a center element α of the Lorentz group and associated with a certain area measured in Planck units. The corresponding charged line operator W  ρ  is the holonomy in a spin representation ρ, which is the gravitational analog of a Wilson loop. The topological linking of U  α  and W  ρ  has an elegant physical interpretation from classical gravitation: the former materializes an exotic chiral cosmic string defect whose quantized conical deficit angle is measured by the latter. We verify this claim explicitly in an AdS-Schwarzschild black hole background. Notably, our conclusions imply that the standard model exhibits a new symmetry of nature at scales below the lightest neutrino mass. More generally, the absence of global symmetries in quantum gravity suggests that the gravitational one-form symmetry is either gauged or explicitly broken. The latter mandates the existence of fermions. Finally, we comment on generalizations to magnetic higher-form or higher-group gravitational symmetries.

Maria Derda

Joon-Hwi Kim

Vinicius Nevoa

Ira Rothstein

Nabha Shah

Generalized symmetry in dynamical gravity

We explore a recently proposed effective field theory describing electromagnetically or gravitationally interacting massive particles in an expansion about their mass ratio, also known as the self-force (SF) expansion. By integrating out the deviation of the heavy particle about its inertial trajectory, we obtain an effective action whose only degrees of freedom are the lighter particle together with the photon or graviton, all propagating in a Coulomb or Schwarzschild background. The 0SF dynamics are described by the usual background field method, which at 1SF is supplemented by a “recoil operator” that encodes the wobble of the heavy particle, and similarly computable corrections appearing at 2SF and higher. Our formalism exploits the fact that the analytic expressions for classical backgrounds and particle trajectories encode dynamical information to all orders in the couplings, and from them we extract multiloop integrands for perturbative scattering. As a check, we study the two-loop classical scattering of scalar particles in electromagnetism and gravity, verifying known results. We then present new calculations for the two-loop classical scattering of dyons, and of particles interacting with an additional scalar or vector field coupling directly to the lighter particle but only gravitationally to the heavier particle.

France

Julio Parra-Martinez

Jordan Wilson-Gerow

Gravitational scattering and beyond from extreme mass ratio effective field theory

Bethe Ansatz was discovered in 1932. Half a century later its algebraic structure was unearthed: Yang-Baxter equation was discovered, as well as its multidimensional generalizations [tetrahedron equation and d-simplex equations]. Here we describe a universal method to solve these equations using Clifford algebras. The Yang-Baxter equation (<math><mi>d</mi><mo>=</mo><mn>2</mn></math>), Zamolodchikov's tetrahedron equation (<math><mi>d</mi><mo>=</mo><mn>3</mn></math>) and the Bazhanov-Stroganov equation (<math><mi>d</mi><mo>=</mo><mn>4</mn></math>) are special cases. Our solutions form a linear space. This helps us to include spectral parameters. Potential applications are discussed.

India

Pramod Padmanabhan

Vladimir Korepin

Solving the Yang-Baxter, tetrahedron and higher simplex equations using Clifford algebras

Is string theory uniquely determined by self-consistency? Causality and unitarity seemingly permit a multitude of putative deformations, at least at the level of two-to-two scattering. Motivated by this question, we initiate a systematic exploration of the constraints on scattering from higher-point factorization, which imposes extraordinarily restrictive sum rules on the residues and spectra defined by a given amplitude. These bounds handily exclude several proposed deformations of the string: the simplest “bespoke” amplitudes with tunable masses and a family of modified string integrands from “binary geometry.” While the string itself passes all tests, our formalism directly extracts the three-point amplitudes for the low-lying string modes without the aid of worldsheet vertex operators.

Nima Arkani-Hamed

Carolina Figueiredo

Multiparticle Factorization and the Rigidity of String Theory

We derive an effective field theory describing a pair of gravitationally interacting point particles in an expansion in their mass ratio, also known as the self-force (SF) expansion. The 0SF dynamics are trivially obtained to all orders in Newton’s constant by the geodesic motion of the light body in a Schwarzschild background encoding the gravitational field of the heavy body. The corrections at 1SF and higher are generated by perturbations about this configuration—that is, the geodesic deviation of the light body and the fluctuation graviton—but crucially supplemented by an operator describing the recoil of the heavy body as it interacts with the smaller companion. Using this formalism we compute new results at third post-Minkowskian order for the conservative dynamics of a system of gravitationally interacting massive particles coupled to a set of additional scalar and vector fields.

Canada

Ira Z. Rothstein

Effective Field Theory for Extreme Mass Ratio Binaries

Dual resonance is one of the great miracles of string theory. At a fundamental level, it implies that the particles exchanged in different channels are subtly equivalent. Furthermore, it is inextricably linked to the property of exceptionally tame high-energy behavior. In this paper, we present explicit, closed-form expressions for a new class of dual resonant amplitudes describing an infinite tower of spins for an arbitrary mass spectrum. In particular, the input of our construction is a user-defined, fully customizable choice of masses. The resulting “bespoke” amplitudes are well behaved in the ultraviolet and analytic except at simple poles whose residues are polynomial in the momentum transfer, in accordance with locality. The absence of branch cuts can be seen using Newton’s identities, but can also be made manifest by expressing the amplitudes as a simple <math><mi>d</mi><mi>log</mi></math> integral of the Veneziano amplitude that remaps the linear Regge trajectories of the string to a tunable spectrum. We identify open regions of parameter space that firmly deviate from string theory but nevertheless comport with partial wave unitarity. Last but not least, we generalize our construction to the scattering of any number of particles in terms of a <math><mi>d</mi><mi>log</mi></math> transform of the Koba-Nielsen worldsheet integral formula.

Bespoke dual resonance

Inspired by the second law of thermodynamics, we study the change in subsystem entropy generated by dynamical unitary evolution of a product state in a bipartite system. Working at leading order in perturbative interactions, we prove that the quantum <math><mi>n</mi></math>-Tsallis entropy of a subsystem never decreases, <math><mrow><mi>Δ</mi><msub><mrow><mi>S</mi></mrow><mrow><mi>n</mi></mrow></msub><mo>≥</mo><mn>0</mn></mrow></math>, provided that subsystem is initialized as a statistical mixture of states of equal probability. This is true for any choice of interactions and any initialization of the complementary subsystem. When this condition on the initial state is violated, it is always possible to explicitly construct a “Maxwell’s demon” process that decreases the subsystem entropy, <math><mrow><mi>Δ</mi><msub><mrow><mi>S</mi></mrow><mrow><mi>n</mi></mrow></msub><mo>&lt;</mo><mn>0</mn></mrow></math>. Remarkably, for the case of particle scattering, the circuit diagrams corresponding to <math><mi>n</mi></math>-Tsallis entropy are the same as the on shell diagrams that have appeared in the modern scattering amplitudes program, and <math><mrow><mi>Δ</mi><msub><mrow><mi>S</mi></mrow><mrow><mi>n</mi></mrow></msub><mo>≥</mo><mn>0</mn></mrow></math> is intimately related to the nonnegativity of cross sections.