In this paper we study the n-point correlation functions of two different families of local gauge invariant operators in N=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory. The main idea is to consider the correlation functions of operators which all share a number of supersymmetries irrespective of their relative locations. We achieve this by equipping the operators with explicit space-time dependence. We provide evidence by different methods that these n-point correlators do not receive quantum corrections in perturbation theory and are hence given exactly by their tree-level result. The arguments rely on explicit checks for general four-point correlators, some five-point and six-point correlators and a more abstract calculation based on a novel topological twisting of N=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory.
A generalization of the two-dimensional Yang-Mills and generalized Yang-Mills theory is introduced in which the building B-F theory is nonlocal in the auxiliary field. The classical and quantum properties of this nonlocal generalization are investigated and it is shown that for large gauge groups, there exist a simple correspondence between the properties a nonlocal theory and its corresponding local theory.
Using an infinite number of fields, we construct actions for D=4 self-dual Yang-Mills with manifest Lorentz invariance and for D=10 super-Yang-Mills with manifest super-Poincaré invariance. These actions are generalizations of the covariant action for the D=2 chiral boson which was first studied by McClain, Wu, Yu and Wotzasek.
We will discuss an integrable structure for weakly coupled superconformal Yang-Mills theories, describe certain equivalences for the Yangian algebra, and fill a technical gap in our previous study of this subject.
The planar Yang-Mills theory in three spatial dimensions is examined in a particular representation which explicitly embodies factorization. The effective planar Yang-Mills theory Hamiltonian is constructed in this representation.
Recent developments in the determination of the planar S-matrix of N=4 Super Yang-Mills are closely related to its Yangian symmetry. Here we provide evidence for a yet unobserved additional symmetry: the Yangian level-one helicity operator.
The BCFW recursion relation in $\mathcal{N}=4$ super-Yang-Mills theory is solved using Yang-Baxter $R$-operators in the NMHV sector. Explicit expressions for $\mathcal{R}$-invariants are obtained in terms of the chains of $R$-operators acting on an appropriate basic state.
The large-N behavior of Yang-Mills and generalized Yang-Mills theories in the double-scaling limit is investigated. By the double-scaling limit, it is meant that the area of the manifold on which the theory is defined, is itself a function of N. It is shown that phase transitions of different orders occur, depending on the functional dependence of the area on N. The finite-size scalings of the system are also investigated. Specifically, the dependence of the dominant representation on A, for large but finite N is determined.
We present new relations for scattering amplitudes of color ordered gluons and gravitons in Einstein-Yang-Mills theory. Tree-level amplitudes of arbitrary multiplicities and polarizations involving up to three gravitons and up to two color traces are reduced to partial amplitudes of pure Yang-Mills theory. In fact, the double-trace identities apply to Einstein-Yang-Mills extended by a dilaton and a B-field. Our results generalize recent work of Stieberger and Taylor for the single graviton case with a single color trace. As the derivation is made in the dimension-agnostic Cachazo-He-Yuan forma…
We analyze in an effective Lagrangian framework the connection between Super QCD (Super Yang Mills) and QCD (Yang Mills) by highlighting the crucial role that the zero modes play in the process of decoupling gluinos and squarks.
We show that the solutions of SU(2) Yang-Mills-dilation and Einstein-Yang-Mills-dilaton theories described in a sequence of papers by Kleihaus and Kunz are not regular in the gauge field part.
The existence of a "bonus" U(1) level-one Yangian symmetry of N=4 super-Yang-Mills has recently been proposed. We provide evidence for this proposal by constructing the BRST-invariant nonlocal charge in the pure spinor sigma model corresponding to this bonus level-one symmetry. We also construct analogous charges for bonus U(1) symmetries at all odd levels of the Yangian.
We define a natural generalized symmetry of the Yang-Mills equations as an infinitesimal transformation of the Yang-Mills field, built in a local, gauge invariant, and Poincaré invariant fashion from the Yang-Mills field strength and its derivatives to any order, which maps solutions of the field equations to other solutions. On the jet bundle of Yang-Mills connections we introduce a spinorial coordinate system that is adapted to the solution subspace defined by the Yang-Mills equations. In terms of this coordinate system the complete classification of natural symmetries is carried out in a st…
For semisimple groups, possibly multiplied by U(1)'s, the number of Yang-Mills gauge fields is equal to the number of generators of the group. In this paper, it is shown that, for non-semisimple groups, the number of Yang-Mills fields can be larger. These additional Yang-Mills fields are not irrelevant because they appear in the gauge transformations of the original Yang-Mills fields. Such non-semisimple Yang-Mills theories may lead to physical consequences worth studying. The non-semisimple group with only two generators that do not commute is studied in detail.
Contour gauges are discussed in the framework of canonical formalism. We find flux operator algebras with the structure constants of underlying Yang-Mills theory.
Using the Cachazo-He-Yuan (CHY) formalism, we prove a recursive expansion of tree level single trace Einstein-Yang-Mills (EYM) amplitudes with arbitrary number of gluons and gravitons, which is valid for general spacetime dimensions and any helicity configurations. The recursion is written in terms of fewer-graviton EYM amplitudes and pure Yang-Mills (YM) amplitudes, which can be further carried out until we reach an expansion in terms of pure YM amplitudes in Kleiss-Kuijf (KK) basis. Our expansion then generates naturally a spanning tree structure rooted on gluons whose vertices are gravitons…
This article contains lecture notes of M. Shifman from the Saalburg Summer School 2004. The topic is supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory, in particular the gluino condensate in pure SUSY gluodynamics.
We construct a four-parameter class of self-dual instanton solutions of the classical SU(2)-Yang-Mills equations in a closed Euclidean Robertson-Walker space-time.
Using the first order formalism (BFYM) of the Yang-Mills theory we show that it displays an embedded topological sector corresponding to the field content of the Topological Yang-Mills theory (TYM). This picture arises after a proper redefinition of the fields of BFYM and gives a clear representation of the non perturbative part of the theory in terms of the topological sector. In this setting the calculation of the $vev$ of a YM observable is translated into the calculation of a corresponding (non topological) quantity in TYM. We then compare the topological observables of TYM with a similar …
The large-group behavior of the nonlocal YM$_2$'s and gYM$_2$'s on a cylinder or a disk is investigated. It is shown that this behavior is similar to that of the corresponding local theory, but with the area of the cylinder replaced by an effective area depending on the dominant representation. The critical areas for nonlocal YM$_2$'s on a cylinder with some special bounary conditions are also obtained.
Recently, Witten proposed a topological string theory in twistor space that is dual to a weakly coupled gauge theory. In this lectures we will discuss aspects of the twistor string theory. Along the way we will learn new things about Yang-Mills scattering amplitudes. The string theory sheds light on Yang-Mills perturbation theory and leads to new methods for computing Yang-Mills scattering amplitudes.
It is known that the Yangian of PSU(2,2|4) is a symmetry of the tree-level S-matrix of N=4 super Yang-Mills. On the other hand, the complete one-loop dilatation operator in the same theory commutes with the level-one Yangian generators only up to certain boundary terms found by Dolan, Nappi and Witten. Using a result by Zwiebel, we show how the Yangian symmetry of the tree-level S-matrix of N=4 super Yang-Mills implies precisely the Yangian invariance, up to boundary terms, of the one-loop dilatation operator.
We propose $N=2$ holomorphic Yang-Mills theory on compact Kähler manifolds and show that there exists a simple mapping from the $N=2$ topological Yang-Mills theory. It follows that intersection parings on the moduli space of Einstein-Hermitian connections can be determined by examining the small coupling behavior of the $N=2$ holomorphic Yang-Mills theory. This paper is a higher dimensional generalization of the Witten's work on physical Yang-Mills theory in two dimensions.
We conjecture that every rational Yangian invariant in N=4 SYM theory satisfies a recently introduced notion of cluster adjacency. We provide evidence for this conjecture by using the Sklyanin Poisson bracket on Gr(4,n) to check numerous examples.
The self-duality Yang-Mills equations in pseudoeuclidean spaces of dimensions $d\leq 8$ are investigated. New classes of solutions of the equations are found. Extended solutions to the D=10, N=1 supergravity and super Yang-Mills equations are constructed from these solutions.
Strongly self-dual Yang-Mills fields in even dimensional spaces are characterised by a set of constraints on the eigenvalues of the Yang-Mills fields $F_{μν}$. We derive a topological bound on ${\bf R}^8$, $\int_{M} ( F,F )^2 \geq k \int_{M} p_1^2$ where $p_1$ is the first Pontrjagin class of the SO(n) Yang-Mills bundle and $k$ is a constant. Strongly self-dual Yang-Mills fields realise the lower bound.
We write a gravity theory with Yang-Mills type action using the biconformal gauging of the conformal group. We show that the resulting biconformal Yang-Mills gravity theories describe 4-dim, scale-invariant general relativity in the case of slowly changing fields. In addition, we systematically extend arbitrary 4-dim Yang-Mills theories to biconformal space, providing a new arena for studying flat space Yang-Mills theories. By applying the biconformal extension to a 4-dim pure Yang-Mills theory with conformal symmetry, we establish a 1-1, onto mapping between a set of gravitational gauge theor…
We investigate Yang-Mills instantons on a 7-dimensional manifold of G_2 holonomy. By proposing a spherically symmetric ansatz for the Yang-Mills connection, we have ordinary differential equations as the reduced instanton equation, and give some explicit and numerical solutions.
The analysis in previous publications of the instanton constraints required to produce a finite action of the theory is carried out also for N=2 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory.
Non-commutative supersymmetric Yang-Mills with rational Theta is dual to an ordinary supersymmetric Yang-Mills with a 't Hooft flux. It is believed that the simplest description is via the ordinary supersymmetric Yang-Mills. We claim, however, that the two descriptions form a hierarchy. The SYM description is the proper description in the ultra violet while the non-commutative description takes over in the infra red.
We consider a Yang-Mills theory in loop space with an affine Lie gauge group. The Chapline-Manton coupling, the coupling between Yang-Mills fields and an abelian antisymmetric tensor field of second rank via the Chern-Simons term, is systematically derived within the framework of the Yang-Mills theory. The generalized Chapline-Manton couplings, the couplings among non-abelian tensor fields of second rank, Yang-Mills fields, and an abelian tensor field of third rank, are also derived by applying the non-linear realization method to the Yang-Mills theory. These couplings are accompanied by {\it …
We consider the Yang-Mills flow equations on a reductive coset space G/H and the Yang-Mills equations on the manifold R x G/H. On nonsymmetric coset spaces G/H one can introduce geometric fluxes identified with the torsion of the spin connection. The condition of G-equivariance imposed on the gauge fields reduces the Yang-Mills equations to phi^4-kink equations on R. Depending on the boundary conditions and torsion, we obtain solutions to the Yang-Mills equations describing instantons, chains of instanton-anti-instanton pairs or modifications of gauge bundles. For Lorentzian signature on R x G…
In this short note I show that the soft limit for colour-ordered tree-level Yang-Mills amplitudes contains a sub-leading divergent term analogous to terms found recently by Cachazo and Strominger for tree-level gravity amplitudes.
We use fractional and wrapped branes to describe perturbative and non-perturbative properties of N=1 super Yang-Mills living on their world-volume. (Talk given at the 1st Nordstrom Symposium, Helsinki, August 2003.)
We show that a recently discovered relation, which expresses tree-level single trace Einstein-Yang-Mills amplitudes with one graviton and $(n-1)$ gauge bosons as a linear combination of pure Yang-Mills tree amplitudes with $n$ gauge bosons, can be derived from the CHY representation. In addition we show that there is a generalisation, which expresses tree-level single trace Einstein-Yang-Mills amplitudes with $r$ gravitons and $(n-r)$ gauge bosons as a linear combination of pure Yang-Mills tree amplitudes with $n$ gauge bosons. We present a general formula for this case.
A recent paper proposes a way of constructing infinite dimensional symmetries of the non-supersymmetric self-dual Yang-Mills action using isometries of the space-time. We review the Lagrangian formulation of N = 4 super Yang-Mills MHV rules and extend the approach taken for the non-supersymmetric case to construct infinite dimensional symmetries of self-dual N = 4 super Yang-Mills.
We compute the ultraviolet divergences in the self-dual Yang-Mills theory, both in the purely perturbative (zero instanton charge) and topologically non-trivial sectors. It is shown in particular that the instanton measure is precisely the same as the one-loop result in the standard Yang-Mills theory.
After adding 7 auxiliary scalars to the d=10 super-Yang-Mills action, 9 of the 16 supersymmetries close off-shell. In this paper, these 9 supersymmetry generators are related by dimensional reduction to scalar and vector topological symmetry in $\N$=2 d=8 twisted super-Yang-Mills. Furthermore, a gauge-invariant superspace action is constructed for d=10 super-Yang-Mills where the superfields depend on 9 anticommuting theta variables.
A surface of codimension higher than one embedded in an ambient space possesses a connection associated with the rotational freedom of its normal vector fields. We examine the Yang-Mills functional associated with this connection. The theory it defines differs from Yang-Mills theory in that it is a theory of surfaces. We focus, in particular, on the Euler-Lagrange equations describing this surface, introducing a framework which throws light on their relationship to the Yang-Mills equations.
We compute the even part of the planar two-loop MHV amplitude in N=4 supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory, for an arbitrary number of external particles. The answer is expressed as a sum of conformal integrals.
In the previous paper, we generalized the method of Abelian decomposition to the case of SO(N) Yang-Mills theory. This method that was proposed by Faddeev and Niemi introduces a set of variables for describing the infrared limit of a Yang-Mills theory. Here, we extend the decomposition method further to the general case of four-dimensional Sp(2N) Yang-Mills theory. We find that the Sp(2N) connection decomposes according to irreducible representations of SO(N).
We discuss the algebraic structure of the various BRST symmetries associated with topological Yang-Mills theory as a generalization of the BRS analysis developed for the non-Abelian anomaly in the local Yang-Mills theory. We show that our BRST algebra leads to an extended {\it Russian formula\/} and {\it descent equations}, which contains the descent equation of Yang-Mills theory as sub-relations. We propose the non-Abelian anomaly counterpart in Topological Yang-Mills theory using the extended descent equation. We also discuss the geometrical structure of our BRST symmetry and some explicit s…
We consider the coupling of nonminimal scalar multiplets to supersymmetric Yang-Mills in four dimensions and compute the one-loop contribution to the low-energy effective action in the abelian sector. We show that the resulting theory realizes the dual version of the corresponding one from N=2 supersymmetric Yang-Mills.
The Coulomb branch of the potential between two static colored sources is calculated for the Yang-Mills theory using the electric Schroedinger representation.
