We consider the structure of the operator product expansion (OPE) in conformal field theory by employing the OPE block formalism. The OPE block acted on the vacuum is promoted to an operator and its implications are examined on a non-vacuum state. We demonstrate that the OPE block is dominated by a light-ray operator in the Regge limit, which reproduces precisely the Regge behavior of conformal blocks when used inside scalar four-point functions. Motivated by this observation, we propose a new form of the OPE block, called the light-ray channel OPE block that has a well-behaved expansion dominated by a light-ray operator in the Regge limit. We also show that the two OPE blocks have the same asymptotic form in the Regge limit and confirm the assertion that the Regge limit of a pair of spacelike-separated operators in a Minkowski patch is equivalent to the OPE limit of a pair of timelike-separated operators associated with the original pair in a different Minkowski patch.
We review the systematics of Mandelstam cut contributions to planar scattering amplitudes in the multi-Regge limit. Isolating the relevant cut terms, we explain how the BFKL expansion can be used to construct the perturbative n-point multi-Regge limit amplitude in certain kinematic regions from a finite number of basic building blocks. At three loops and at leading logarithmic order, two building blocks are required. Their symbols are extracted from the known three-loop six-point and seven-point symbols for general kinematics. The new seven-point building block is constructed in terms of singl…
We study a holographic construction of conformal blocks in the Regge limit of four-point scalar correlation functions by using coordinates of the two-sided Rindler-AdS black hole. As a generalization of geodesic Witten diagrams, we construct diagrams with four external scalar fields in the Rindler-AdS black hole by integrating over two half-geodesics between the centers of Penrose diagrams and points at the AdS boundary. We demonstrate that late-time behaviors of the diagrams coincide with the Regge behaviors of conformal blocks. We also point out their relevance with the pole-skipping phenome…
The Operator Product Expansion is a useful tool to represent correlation functions. In this note we extend Conformal Regge theory to provide an exact OPE representation of Lorenzian four-point correlators in conformal field theory, valid even away from Regge limit. The representation extends convergence of the OPE by rewriting it as a double integral over continuous spins and dimensions, and features a novel "Regge block". We test the formula in the conformal fishnet theory, where exact results involving nontrivial Regge trajectories are available.
We discuss scattering in a CFT via the conformal partial-wave analysis and the Regge limit. The focus of this paper is on understanding an OPE with Minkowski conformal blocks. Starting with a t-channel OPE, it leads to an expansion for an s-channel scattering amplitude in terms of t-channel exchanges. By contrasting with Euclidean conformal blocks we see a precise relationship between conformal blocks in the two limits without preforming an explicit analytic continuation. We discuss a generic feature for a CFT correlation function having singular $F^{(M)}(u,v)\sim {u}^{-δ}\,$, $δ>0$, in the li…
We consider the high-energy limits of the colour ordered four-, five- and six-gluon MHV amplitudes of the maximally supersymmetric QCD in the multi-Regge kinematics where all the gluons are strongly ordered in rapidity. We show that various building blocks occurring in the Regge factorisation (the Regge trajectory, the coefficient functions and the Lipatov vertex) satisfy an iterative structure very similar to the Bern-Dixon-Smirnov (BDS) ansatz. This iterative structure, combined with the universality of the building blocks, enables us to show that in the Euclidean region any two- and three-l…
We study two kinematical limits, the Regge limit and the Lorentzian OPE limit, of the four-point function of the stress-tensor multiplet in Super Yang-Mills at weak coupling. We explain how both kinematical limits are controlled by the leading twist operators. We use the known expression of the four-point function up to three loops, to extract the pomeron residue at next-to-leading order. Using this data and the known form of pomeron spin up to next-to-leading order, we predict the behaviour of the four-point function in the Regge limit at higher loops. Specifically, we determine the leading l…
This paper has two parts. We first compute the leading contribution to the strong-coupling mixing between the Konishi operator and a double-trace operator composed of chiral primaries by using flat-space vertex operators for the string-duals of the operators. We then compute the three-point functions for protected or unprotected scalar operators with higher spin operators on the leading Regge trajectory. Here we see that the nontrivial spatial structures required by conformal invariance arise naturally from the form of the polarization tensors in the vertex operators. We find agreement with re…
We examine the calculation of the color-ordered disk level S-matrix element of massless scalar vertex operators for the special case that some of the Mandelstam variables for which there are no open string channel in the amplitude, are set to zero. By explicit calculation we show that the string form factors in the 2n-point functions reduce to one at the eikonal Regge limit.
We generalize Regge theory to correlation functions in conformal field theories. This is done by exploring the analogy between Mellin amplitudes in AdS/CFT and S-matrix elements. In the process, we develop the conformal partial wave expansion in Mellin space, elucidating the analytic structure of the partial amplitudes. We apply the new formalism to the case of four point correlation functions between protected scalar operators in N=4 Super Yang Mills, in cases where the Regge limit is controlled by the leading twist operators associated to the pomeron-graviton Regge trajectory. At weak coupli…
We study the pairwise interaction of reggeized gluons and quarks in the Regge limit of perturbative QCD. The interactions are represented as integral kernels in the transverse momentum space and as operators in the impact parameter space. We observe conformal symmetry and holomorphic factorization in all cases.
In this note we consider the four-point function of identical scalar operators in its Mellin representation. For CFTs, taking the large scaling dimension limit of the Mellin amplitude yields the flat-space S-matrix. Using this correspondence, and assuming that the Regge-limit of the Mellin amplitude vanishes, we prove that the resulting flat space S-matrix must have string-like linear Regge trajectory in the limit |s|>>|t|>>1. We also show that the Regge limit of Mellin amplitude is captured by the three-point coefficient of two scalars and one double trace operator in the large-spin limit. Us…
We explore a direct connection between the collinear limit and the multi-Regge limit for scattering amplitudes in the N=4 super Yang-Mills theory. Starting with the collinear expansion for the six-gluon amplitude in the Euclidean kinematic region, we perform an analytic continuation term by term to the so-called Mandelstam region. We find that the result coincides with the collinear expansion of the analytically continued amplitude. We then take the multi-Regge limit, and conjecture that the final result precisely reproduces the one from the BFKL approach. Combining this procedure with the OPE…
We present an all-loop dispersion integral, well-defined to arbitrary logarithmic accuracy, describing the multi-Regge limit of the 2->5 amplitude in planar N=4 super Yang-Mills theory. It follows from factorization, dual conformal symmetry and consistency with soft limits, and specifically holds in the region where the energies of all produced particles have been analytically continued. After promoting the known symbol of the 2-loop N-particle MHV amplitude in this region to a function, we specialize to N=7, and extract from it the next-to-leading order (NLO) correction to the BFKL central em…
We explore the structures of light cone and Regge limit singularities of $n$-point Virasoro conformal blocks in $c>1$ two-dimensional conformal field theories with no chiral primaries, using fusion matrix approach. These CFTs include not only holographic CFTs dual to classical gravity, but also their full quantum corrections, since this approach allows us to explore full $1/c$ corrections. As the important applications, we study time dependence of Renyi entropy after a local quench and out-of-time ordered correlator (OTOC) at late time. We first show that, the $n$-th ($n>2$) Renyi entropy afte…
We analyse the OPE contribution of gluon bound states in the double scaling limit of the hexagonal Wilson loop in planar N=4 super Yang-Mills theory. We provide a systematic procedure for perturbatively resumming the contributions from single-particle bound states of gluons and expressing the result order by order in terms of two-variable polylogarithms. We also analyse certain contributions from two-particle gluon bound states and find that, after analytic continuation to the $2\to 4$ Mandelstam region and passing to multi-Regge kinematics (MRK), only the single-particle gluon bound states co…
We study an inequality between a scaling exponent $A$ in the Regge limit of tree-level flat space S-matrices with external massless scalars and another scaling exponent $A'$ in the Regge limit of the corresponding four-point scalar conformal correlators by using scaling exponents of Mellin amplitudes. We derive $A'\ge A$, which leads to the Regge growth bound of tree-level flat space S-matrices from the chaos bound in the flat space limit of the AdS/CFT correspondence, from polynomial boundedness of the Mellin amplitudes for local bulk descriptions. We also show $A'=A$ from the conformal block…
We examine the Regge limit of holographic 4-point correlation functions in AdS$_3\times S^3$ involving two heavy and two light operators. In this kinematic regime such correlators can be reconstructed from the bulk phase shift accumulated by the light probe as it traverses the geometry dual to the heavy operator. We work perturbatively -- but to arbitrary orders -- in the ratio of the heavy operator's conformal dimension to the dual CFT${}_2$'s central charge, thus going beyond the low order results of arXiv:1812.03120 and arXiv:2007.12118. In doing so, we derive all-order relations between th…
The set of Casimir operators associated with the global symmetries of a charged string in a constant magnetic background are found. It is shown that the string rest energy can be expressed as a combination of these invariants. Using this result, the Regge trajectories of the system are derived. The first Regge trajectory is given by a family of infinitely many parallel straight-lines, one for each spin projection along the magnetic field.
We study the Regge limit of 4-point AdS$_3 \times S^3$ correlators in the tree-level supergravity approximation and provide various explicit checks of the relation between the eikonal phase derived in the bulk picture and the anomalous dimensions of certain double-trace operators. We consider both correlators involving all light operators and HHLL correlators with two light and two heavy multi-particle states. These heavy operators have a conformal dimension proportional to the central charge and are pure states of the theory, dual to asymptotically AdS$_3 \times S^3$ regular geometries. Devia…
We study the properties of the leading Regge trajectory in open string theory including the open string planar one-loop corrections. With SU(N) Chan-Paton factors, the sum over planar open string multi-loop diagrams describes the 't Hooft limit N\to\infty. Our motivation is to improve the understanding of open string theory at finite α' as a model of gauge theories. SU(N) gauge theories in D space-time dimensions are described by requiring open strings to end on a stack of N Dp-branes of space-time dimension D=p+1. The large N leading trajectory α(t)=1+α' t+Σ(t) can be extracted, through order…
Traditional idea of Pomeron/Reggeon description for hadron scattering is now being given theoretical foundation in gravity dual descriptions, where Pomeron corresponds to exchange of spin-j\in 2Z states in the graviton trajectory. Deeply virtual compton scattering (DVCS) is essentially a 2 to 2 scattering process of a hadron and a photon, and hence one should be able to study non-perturbative aspects (GPD) of this process by the "Pomeron" process in gravity dual. We find, however, that even the most developed formulation of gravity dual Pomeron (Brower--Polchinski--Strassler--Tan (BPST) 2006) …
The bulk phase shift, related to a CFT four-point function, describes two-to-two scattering at fixed impact parameter in the dual AdS spacetime. We describe its properties for a generic CFT and then focus on large $N$ CFTs with classical bulk duals. We compute the bulk phase shift for vector operators using Regge theory. We use causality and unitarity to put bounds on the bulk phase shift. The resulting constraints bound three-point functions of two vector operators and the stress tensor in terms of the gap of the theory. Similar bounds should hold for any spinning operator in a CFT. Holograph…
We develop the technology for Polyakov-Mellin (PM) bootstrap in one-dimensional conformal field theories (CFT$_1$). By adding appropriate contact terms, we bootstrap various effective field theories in AdS$_2$ and analytically compute the CFT data to one loop. The computation can be extended to higher orders in perturbation theory, if we ignore mixing, for any external dimension. We develop PM bootstrap for $O(N)$ theories and derive the necessary contact terms for such theories (which also involves a new higher gradient contact term absent for $N=1$). We perform cross-checks which include con…
Highly energetic particles traveling in the background of an asymptotically AdS black hole experience a Shapiro time delay and an angle deflection. These quantities are related to the Regge limit of a heavy-heavy-light-light four-point function of scalar operators in the dual CFT. The Schwarzschild radius of the black hole in AdS units is proportional to the ratio of the conformal dimension of the heavy operator and the central charge. This ratio serves as a useful expansion parameter; its power counts the number of stress tensors in the multi-stress tensor operators which contribute to the fo…
A novel way of computing high-order amplitudes in the multi-Regge limit of planar maximally supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory is presented. In this framework, we are able to obtain high-loop and high-leg results by an easy operation on known amplitudes with fewer loops and lower multiplicity. This mechanism will be reviewed, along with an ensuing factorisation which allows us to determine leading logarithmic MHV results for any number of legs at a fixed loop order.
The structure constants of twist-two operators with spin $j$ in the BFKL limit $g^2\rightarrow 0, j\rightarrow 1$ but ${g^2\over j-1}\sim 1$ are determined from the calculation of the three-point correlator of twist-two light-ray operators in the triple Regge limit. It is well known that the anomalous dimensions of twist-two operators in this limit are determined by the BFKL intercept. Similarly, the obtained structure constants are determined by an analytic function of three BFKL intercepts.
The soft wall model in holographic QCD has Regge trajectories but wrong operator product expansion (OPE) for the two-point vectorial QCD Green function. We modify the dilaton potential to comply OPE. We study also the axial two-point function using the same modified dilaton field and an additional scalar field to address chiral symmetry breaking. OPE is recovered adding a boundary term and low energy chiral parameters, $F_π$ and $L_{10}$, are well described analytically by the model in terms of Regge spacing and QCD condensates. The model nicely supports and extends previous theoretical analys…
The stress tensor sector of a heavy-heavy-light-light scalar correlator in CFTs with a large central charge and a large gap is defined by the exchange of multi-stress tensor operators. The Regge limit of this correlator is determined by the phase shift of a highly energetic particle propagating in a dual black hole background. Assuming Einstein gravity in the bulk, the phase shift is known perturbatively to all orders in the ratio of the heavy scaling dimension over the central charge. In the CFT, the order counts the number of stress tensors in the multi-stress tensor operator. By Fourier tra…
We define a Regge limit for off-shell Green functions in quantum field theory, and study it in the particular case of conformal field theories (CFT). Our limit differs from that defined in arXiv:0801.3002, the latter being only a particular corner of the Regge regime. By studying the limit for free CFTs, we are able to reproduce the Low-Nussinov, BFKL approach to the pomeron at weak coupling. The dominance of Feynman graphs where only two high momentum lines are exchanged in the t-channel, follows simply from the free field analysis. We can then define the BFKL kernel in terms of the two point…
We compute the masses of even spin glueball states $ J^{PC} $, with $ P=C=+1 $, using a twist two operator from an AdS/QCD model known as the hardwall model, using Dirichlet and Neumann boundary conditions. Within this approach, we found that the glueball masses are comparable with those in literature. From these masses, we obtained the Pomeron Regge trajectories for both boundary conditions in agreement with experimental data available and other holographic models.
In this work, we consider a massive gauge boson field in AdS$_5$ dual to odd glueball states with twist-5 operator in 4D Minkowski spacetime. Introducing an IR cutoff we break the conformal symmetry of the boundary theory allowing us to calculate the glueball masses with odd spins using Dirichlet and Neumann boundary conditions. Then, from these masses we construct the corresponding Regge trajectories associated with the odderon. Our results are compatible with the ones in the literature.
We revisit the calculation of the six-gluon remainder function in planar $\mathcal{N} = 4$ super Yang-Mills theory from the strong coupling TBA in the multi-Regge limit and identify an infinite set of kinematically subleading terms. These new terms can be compared to the strong coupling limit of the finite-coupling expressions for the impact factor and the BFKL eigenvalue proposed by Basso et al. in arXiv:1407.3766, which were obtained from an analytic continuation of the Wilson loop OPE. After comparing the results order by order in those subleading terms, we show that it is possible to preci…
We consider unitary CFTs with continuous global symmetries in $d>2$. We consider a state created by the lightest operator of large charge $Q \gg 1$ and analyze the correlator of two light charged operators in this state. We assume that the correlator admits a well-defined large $Q$ expansion and, relatedly, that the macroscopic (thermodynamic) limit of the correlator exists. We find that the crossing equations admit a consistent truncation, where only a finite number $N$ of Regge trajectories contribute to the correlator at leading nontrivial order. We classify all such truncated solutions to …
Using rapidity evolution equations we study two-to-two gauge-theory scattering amplitudes in the Regge limit. We carry out explicit computations at next-to-next-to-leading logarithmic accuracy through four loops and present new results for both infrared-singular and finite contributions to the amplitude. New techniques are devised in order to derive the colour structure stemming from three-Reggeon exchange diagrams in terms of commutators of channel operators, obtaining results that are valid for any gauge group, and apply to scattered particles in any colour representation. We also elucidate …
We derive, in the framework of soft-collinear effective field theory (SCET), a Lagrangian describing the $t$-channel exchange of Glauber quarks in the Regge limit. The Glauber quarks are not dynamical, but are incorporated through non-local fermionic potential operators. These operators are power suppressed in $|t|/s$ relative to those describing Glauber gluon exchange, but give the first non-vanishing contributions in the Regge limit to processes such as $q\bar q \to gg$ and $q\bar q \to γγ$. They therefore represent an interesting subset of power corrections to study. The structure of the op…
We analytically solve the conformal bootstrap equations in the Regge limit for large N conformal field theories. For theories with a parametrically large gap, the amplitude is dominated by spin-2 exchanges and we show how the crossing equations naturally lead to the construction of AdS exchange Witten diagrams. We also show how this is encoded in the anomalous dimensions of double-trace operators of large spin and large twist. We use the chaos bound to prove that the anomalous dimensions are negative. Extending these results to correlators containing two scalars and two conserved currents, we …
The spectra of masses and decay constants for non-strange meson resonances in the energy range 0--2.5 GeV is analyzed. It is known from meson phenomenology that for given quantum numbers these spectra approximately follow linear trajectories with a universal slope. These facts can be understood in terms of an effective string description for QCD. For light meson states the trajectories deviate noticeably from the linear behavior. We investigate the possible corrections to the linear trajectories by matching two-point correlators of quark currents to the Operator Product Expansion (OPE). We fin…
At small momentum transfer, the quark-gluon scattering cross section dσ/dt has a power-law divergence in the backward scattering region where the outgoing quark is nearly collinear to the incoming gluon. In this Regge limit |t|<< s, the leading behavior of the 2 2 amplitude can be described by the exchange of Glauber quarks. In Soft-Collinear Effective Theory (SCET) at leading power, Glauber quark exchange is given by five non-local Glauber quark operators, of which only one is generated at tree-level. We show that at leading power the QCD amplitude for quark-gluon backscattering at one-loop c…
We analyze conformal field theory 4-point functions of the form A ~ O_1(x_1) O_2(x_2) O_1(x_3) O_2(x_4), where the operators O_i are scalar primaries. We show that, in the Lorentzian regime, the limit x_1 -> x_3 is dominated by the exchange of conformal partial waves of highest spin. When partial waves of arbitrary spin contribute to A, the behavior of the Lorentzian amplitude for x_1 -> x_3 must be analyzed using complex-spin techniques, leading to a generalized Regge theory for CFT's. Whenever the CFT is dual to a string theory, the string tree-level contribution A_tree to the amplitude A pr…
C. N. Yang Institute for Theoretical Physics, Stony Brook University（杨振宁理论物理研究所，石溪大学）；Simons Center for Geometry and Physics, Stony Brook University（西蒙斯几何与物理中心，石溪大学）
本文在 pp 波背景上研究共形场论中大自旋算符的渐近行为，通过热单点函数预测高温与低温区域的渐近行为，并在自由标量理论及大 N O(N) 模型中验证。研究揭示了 Regge 极限与热场论及解析自举的联系。
The soft anomalous dimension governs the infrared divergences of scattering amplitudes in general kinematics to all orders in perturbation theory. By comparing the recent Regge-limit results for $2\to2$ scattering (through Next-to-Next-to-Leading Logarithms) in full colour to a general form for the soft anomalous dimension at four loops we derive powerful constraints on its kinematic dependence, opening the way for a bootstrap-based determination.
We consider the Regge limit of the CFT correlation functions $\langle {\cal J} {\cal J} {\cal O}{\cal O}\rangle$ and $\langle TT {\cal O}{\cal O}\rangle$, where ${\cal J}$ is a vector current, $T$ is the stress tensor and ${\cal O}$ is some scalar operator. These correlation functions are related by a type of Fourier transform to the AdS phase shift of the dual 2-to-2 scattering process. AdS unitarity was conjectured some time ago to be positivity of the imaginary part of this bulk phase shift. This condition was recently proved using purely CFT arguments. For large $N$ CFTs we further expand …
We study the constraints that the operator product expansion imposes on large $N_c$ inspired QCD models for current-current correlators. We focus on the constraints obtained by going beyond the leading-order parton computation. We explicitly show that, assumed a given mass spectrum: linear Regge behavior in $n$ (the principal quantum number) plus corrections in $1/n$, we can obtain the logarithmic (and constant) behavior in $n$ of the decay constants within a systematic expansion in $1/n$. Our example shows that it is possible to have different large $n$ behavior for the vector and pseudo-vect…
In the high energy Regge limit, the six gluons scattering amplitude is controlled by the adjoint BFKL eigenvalue and impact factor. In this paper we determine these two building blocks at any value of the 't Hooft coupling in planar $\cal{N}$=4 SYM theory. This is achieved by means of analytic continuations from the collinear limit, where similar all loops expressions were recently established. We check our predictions against all available data at weak and strong coupling.
We introduce a new operator in Loop Quantum Gravity - the 3D curvature operator - related to the 3-dimensional scalar curvature. The construction is based on Regge Calculus. We define it starting from the classical expression of the Regge curvature, then we derive its properties and discuss some explicit checks of the semi-classical limit.
We develop an approach to the high-energy limit of gauge theories based on the universal properties of their infrared singularities. Our main tool is the dipole formula, a compact ansatz for the all-order infrared singularity structure of scattering amplitudes of massless partons. By taking the high-energy limit, we show that the dipole formula implies Reggeization of infrared-singular contributions to the amplitude, at leading logarithmic accuracy, for the exchange of arbitrary color representations in the cross channel. We observe that the real part of the amplitude Reggeizes also at next-to…
What is the space of weakly-coupled, gravitational theories which contain massive, higher-spin particles? This class of theories is highly constrained and it is conjectured their ultraviolet completion must be string theory. We provide more evidence for this conjecture by studying the Regge limit in large $N$, $4d$ CFTs with single-trace operators of unbounded spin. We show that in the Regge limit, these theories have bulk scattering amplitudes which are consistent with the string theory prediction to all orders in $1/N$ for large, but finite, coupling. In the language of Regge theory, we show…
