High Energy Theory Seminar

In the planar limit of a large number of colors, N=4 Super-Yang-Mills theory becomes integrable and certain scattering amplitudes and form factors can be computed to 8 loops. The first nontrivial amplitude in this theory is for six gluons. It was bootstrapped to 7 loops, using the rigidity of the function space of multiple polylogarithms and boundary conditions from integrability (the pentagon OPE).  A particular form factor, for the chiral stress-tensor operator to produce 3 gluons, can be bootstrapped through 8 loops. This form factor is the N=4 analog of the LHC process, gluon gluon --> Higgs + gluon. Remarkably, the two quantities are related by a mysterious "antipodal" duality, which exchanges the role of branch cuts and derivatives. Furthermore, this duality is "explained" by an antipodal self-duality of the 4-gluon form factor of the same operator. The self-duality has been verified through 3 loops.  Recently, antipodal self-duality has been found in certain square fishnet integrals that govern 4-point correlators in a strongly-deformed limit of planar N=4 SYM.  However, we still don't know "who ordered" antipodal (self-)duality, or what it really means.

The talk is in 469 Lauritsen.

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