Abstract:
Scattering amplitudes are the arena where quantum field theory directly meets collider experiments. An excellent model for scattering in QCD is provided by N=4 super-Yang-Mills theory, particularly in the planar limit of a large number of colors, where the theory becomes integrable, and amplitudes become dual to light-like polygonal Wilson-loop expectation values. The first nontrivial case is the 6-gluon amplitude (hexagonal Wilson loop), which can be computed to 7 loops using a bootstrap which is based on the rigidity of the function space of multiple polylogarithms, together with a few other conditions. It is also possible to bootstrap a particular form factor, for the chiral stress-tensor operator to produce 3 gluons, through 8 loops. Remarkably, the two sets of results are related by a mysterious “antipodal” duality, which exchanges the role of branch cuts and derivatives. I will describe how bootstrapping works and what we know about this new duality.
Brief biography:
I received my PhD from Princeton University in 1986. Except for a year at Princeton as an Assistant Professor, I have been based at SLAC ever since, as a Professor since 1998. I began my research career in string theory, and began studying the properties of scattering amplitudes in field theory around 1992. I received the Sakurai Prize of the American Physical Society in 2014 and a Humboldt Research Award in 2017.
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