Notes on polytopes, amplitudes and boundary configurations for Grassmannian string integrals
Song He, Lecheng Ren, Yong Zhang
备注：
34 pages+ appendices, lots of figures, with typo fixed. Ancilliary files for all the facets up to $k=3$, $n=10$ and $k=4$, $n=9$, as well as ampltitudes up to $n=8$ are included with the submission
We continue the study of positive geometries underlying the {\it Grassmannian string integrals}, which are a class of "stringy canonical forms", or stringy integrals, over the positive Grassmannian mod torus action, $G_+(k,n)/T$. The leading order of any such stringy integral is given by the canonical function of a polytope, which can be obtained using the Minkowski sum of the Newton polytopes for the regulators of the integral, or equivalently given by the so-called scattering-equation map. The canonical function of the polytopes for Grassmannian string integrals, or the volume of their dual polytopes, is also known as the generalized bi-adjoint $ϕ^3$ amplitudes. We compute all the linear functions for the facets which cut out the polytope for all cases up to $n=9$, with up to k=4 and their parity conjugate cases. The main novelty of our computation is that we present these facets in a manifestly gauge-invariant and cyclic way, and identify the boundary configurations of $G_+(k,n)/T$ corresponding to these facets, which have nice geometric interpretations in terms of $n$ points in $(k{-}1)$-dimensional space. All the facets and configurations we discovered up to $n=9$ directly generalize to all $n$, although new types are still needed for higher $n$.
These are lecture notes intended to supplement my second lecture at the Current Developments in Mathematics conference in 2014. In the first half of article, we give an introduction to the totally nonnegative Grassmannian together with a survey of some more recent work. In the second half of the article, we give a definition of a Grassmann polytope motivated by work of physicists on the amplituhedron. We propose to use Schubert calculus and canonical bases to replace linear algebra and convexity in the theory of polytopes.
The classical permutohedron Perm is the convex hull of the points (w(1),...,w(n)) in R^n where w ranges over all permutations in the symmetric group. This polytope has many beautiful properties -- for example it provides a way to visualize the weak Bruhat order: if we orient the permutohedron so that the longest permutation w_0 is at the "top" and the identity e is at the "bottom," then the one-skeleton of Perm is the Hasse diagram of the weak Bruhat order. Equivalently, the paths from e to w_0 along the edges of Perm are in bijection with the reduced decompositions of w_0. Moreover, the two-d…
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 a detailed construction of the positroid stratification of orthogonal Grassmannian relevant for ABJM amplitudes. On-shell diagrams are classified by pairing of external particles. We introduce a combinatorial aid called `OG tableaux' and map each equivalence class of on-shell diagrams to a unique tableau. The on-shell diagrams related to each other through B…
The study of the moment map from the Grassmannian to the hypersimplex, and the relation between torus orbits and matroid polytopes, dates back to the foundational 1987 work of Gelfand-Goresky-MacPherson-Serganova. On the other hand, the amplituhedron is a very new object, defined by Arkani-Hamed-Trnka in connection with scattering amplitudes in $\mathcal{N}=4$ super Yang-Mills theory. In this paper we discover a striking duality between the moment map $μ:Gr^{\geq0}_{k+1,n}\toΔ_{k+1,n}$ from the positive Grassmannian $Gr^{\geq0}_{k+1,n}$ to the hypersimplex, and the amplituhedron map $\tilde{Z}…
In this note we continue the exploration of the polytope picture for scattering amplitudes, where amplitudes are associated with the volumes of polytopes in generalized momentum-twistor spaces. After a quick warm-up example illustrating the essential ideas with the elementary geometry of polygons in CP^2, we interpret the 1-loop MHV integrand as the volume of a polytope in CP^3x CP^3, which can be thought of as the space obtained by taking the geometric dual of the Wilson loop in each CP^3 of the product. We then review the polytope picture for the NMHV tree amplitude and give it a more direct…
Recently, scattering amplitudes in four-dimensional Minkowski spacetime have been interpreted as conformal correlation functions on the two-dimensional celestial sphere, the so-called celestial amplitudes. In this note we consider tree-level scattering amplitudes in $\mathcal{N}=4$ super Yang-Mills theory and present a Grassmannian formulation of their celestial counterparts. This result paves the way towards a geometric picture for celestial superamplitudes, in the spirit of positive geometries.
Inspired by the new soft theorem in gravity by Cachazo and Strominger, the soft theorem for color-ordered Yang-Mills amplitudes has also been identified by Casali. In this note, the same content of N=4 SYM using the Grassmannian formulation is studied. Explicitly, in the holomorphic soft limit, we reduce the n-particle amplitude in terms of Grassmannian contour integrations into the deformed (n-1)-particle amplitude by localizing k variables relevant to the n-th particle. Afterwards, the leading soft factor and sub-leading soft operator naturally emerge.
We describe a family of tropical fans related to Grassmannian cluster algebras. These fans are related to the kinematic space of massless scattering processes in a number of ways. For each fan associated to the Grassmannian ${\rm Gr}(k,n)$ there is a notion of a generalised $ϕ^3$ amplitude and an associated set of scattering equations which further generalise the ${\rm Gr}(k,n)$ scattering equations that have been recently introduced. Here we focus mostly on the cases related to finite Grassmannian cluster algebras and we explain how face variables for the cluster polytopes are simply related …
We define and study the totally nonnegative part of the Chow quotient of the Grassmannian, or more simply the nonnegative configuration space. This space has a natural stratification by positive Chow cells, and we show that nonnegative configuration space is homeomorphic to a polytope as a stratified space. We establish bijections between positive Chow cells and the following sets: (a) regular subdivisions of the hypersimplex into positroid polytopes, (b) the set of cones in the positive tropical Grassmannian, and (c) the set of cones in the positive Dressian. Our work is motivated by connecti…
Braverman, Finkelberg and Nakajima introduced the generalized affine Grassmannian slices $\overline{\mathcal W}^λ_μ$ and showed that they are Coulomb branches of $3d$ $\mathcal N=4$ gauge theories. We prove a conjecture of theirs that a transversal slice of $\mathcal W^ν_μ$ in $\overline{\mathcal W}^λ_μ$ is isomorphic to $\overline{\mathcal W}^λ_ν$. In addition, they conjecture that Coulomb branches of $3d$ $\mathcal N=4$ gauge theories have symplectic singularities, and we confirm this conjecture for generalized affine Grassmannian slices $\overline{\mathcal W}^λ_μ$. Along the way we give a n…
Any totally positive $(k+m)\times n$ matrix induces a map $π_+$ from the positive Grassmannian ${\rm Gr}_+(k,n)$ to the Grassmannian ${\rm Gr}(k,k+m)$, whose image is the amplituhedron $\mathcal{A}_{n,k,m}$ and is endowed with a top-degree form called the canonical form ${\bfΩ}(\mathcal{A}_{n,k,m})$. This construction was introduced by Arkani-Hamed and Trnka, where they showed that ${\bfΩ}(\mathcal{A}_{n,k,4})$ encodes scattering amplitudes in $\mathcal{N}=4$ super Yang-Mills theory. Moreover, the computation of ${\bfΩ}(\mathcal{A}_{n,k,m})$ is reduced to finding the triangulations of $\mathca…
In this paper, we continue our study of blade arrangements and the positroidal subdivisions which are induced by them on $Δ_{k,n}$. A blade is a tropical hypersurface which is generated by a system of $n$ affine simple roots of type $SL_n$ that enjoys a cyclic symmetry. When placed at the center of a simplex, a blade induces a decomposition into $n$ maximal cells which are known as Pitman-Stanley polytopes. We introduce a complex $(B_{k,n},\partial)$ of weighted blade arrangements and we prove that the positive tropical Grassmannian surjects onto the top component of the complex, such that the…
A duality has recently been conjectured between all leading singularities of n-particle N^(k-2)MHV scattering amplitudes in N=4 SYM and the residues of a contour integral with a natural measure over the Grassmannian G(k,n). In this note we show that a simple contour deformation converts the sum of Grassmannian residues associated with the BCFW expansion of NMHV tree amplitudes to the CSW expansion of the same amplitude. We propose that for general k the same deformation yields the (k-2) parameter Risager expansion. We establish this equivalence for all MHV-bar amplitudes and show that the Risa…
We propose to use tensor diagrams and the Fomin-Pylyavskyy conjectures to explore the connection between symbol alphabets of $n$-particle amplitudes in planar $\mathcal{N}=4$ Yang-Mills theory and certain polytopes associated to the Grassmannian G(4, $n$). We show how to assign a web (a planar tensor diagram) to each facet of these polytopes. Webs with no inner loops are associated to cluster variables (rational symbol letters). For webs with a single inner loop we propose and explicitly evaluate an associated web series that contains information about algebraic symbol letters. In this manner …
The biadjoint scalar partial amplitude, $m_n(\mathbb{I},\mathbb{I})$, can be expressed as a single integral over the positive tropical Grassmannian thus producing a Global Schwinger Parameterization. The first result in this work is an extension to all partial amplitudes $m_n(α,β)$ using a limiting procedure on kinematic invariants that produces indicator functions in the integrand. The same limiting procedure leads to an integral representation of $ϕ^4$ amplitudes where indicator functions turn into Dirac delta functions. Their support decomposes into $\textrm{C}_{n/2-1}$ regions, with $\text…
This note is based on a talk given at String-Math 2012 in Bonn, on a joint paper with Ed Segal. We exhibit derived equivalences corresponding to certain Grassmannian flops. The construction of these equivalences is inspired by work of Herbst-Hori-Page on brane transport for gauged linear sigma models: in particular, we define 'windows' corresponding to their grade restriction rules. We then show how composing our equivalences produces interesting autoequivalences, which we describe as twists and cotwists about certain spherical functors. Our proofs use natural long exact sequences of bundles o…
The tree amplituhedra $\mathcal{A}_{n,k}^{(m)}$ are mathematical objects generalising the notion of polytopes into the Grassmannian. Proposed for $m=4$ as a geometric construction encoding tree-level scattering amplitudes in planar $\mathcal{N}=4$ super Yang-Mills theory, they are mathematically interesting for any $m$. In this paper we strengthen the relation between scattering amplitudes and geometry by linking the amplituhedron to the Jeffrey-Kirwan residue, a powerful concept in symplectic and algebraic geometry. We focus on a particular class of amplituhedra in any dimension, namely cycli…
Some aspects of Aomoto's generalized hypergeometric functions on Grassmannian spaces $Gr(k+1,n+1)$ are reviewed. Particularly, their integral representations in terms of twisted homology and cohomology are clarified with an example of the $Gr(2,4)$ case which corresponds to Gauss' hypergeometric functions. The cases of $Gr(2, n+1)$ in general lead to $(n+1)$-point solutions of the Knizhnik-Zamolodchikov (KZ) equation. We further analyze the Schechtman-Varchenko integral representations of the KZ solutions in relation to the $Gr(k+1, n+1)$ cases. We show that holonomy operators of the so-called…
Recent years have seen a surprising connection between the physics of scattering amplitudes and a class of mathematical objects--the positive Grassmannian, positive loop Grassmannians, tree and loop Amplituhedra--which have been loosely referred to as "positive geometries". The connection between the geometry and physics is provided by a unique differential form canonically determined by the property of having logarithmic singularities (only) on all the boundaries of the space, with residues on each boundary given by the canonical form on that boundary. In this paper we initiate an exploration…
By employing the ${\rm AdS}_3/{\rm CFT}_2$ correspondence in this note we observe an analogy between the structures found in connection with the Arkani-Hamed-Bai-He-Yan (ABHY) associahedron used for understanding scattering amplitudes, and the one used for understanding space-time emerging from patterns of entanglement. The analogy suggests the natural interpretation for the associahedron as a holographic entanglement polytope associated to the ${\rm CFT}_2$ vacuum. Our observations hint at the possibility that the factorization properties of scattering amplitudes are connected to the notion o…
