We propose a new program for computing a certain integrand of scattering amplitudes of four-dimensional gauge theories which we call the \textit{form factor integrand}, starting from 6d holomorphic theories on twistor space. We show that the form factor integrands can be expressed as sums of products of 1.) correlators of a 2d chiral algebra, related to the algebra of asymptotic symmetries uncovered recently in the celestial holography program, and 2.) OPE coefficients of a 4d non-unitary CFT. We prove that conformal blocks of the chiral algebras are in one-to-one correspondence with local operators in 4d. We use this bijection to recover the Parke-Taylor formula, the CSW formula, and certain one-loop scattering amplitudes. Along the way, we explain and derive various aspects of celestial holography, incorporating techniques from the twisted holography program such as Koszul duality. This perspective allows us to easily and efficiently recover the infinite-dimensional chiral algebras of asymptotic symmetries recently extracted from scattering amplitudes of massless gluons and gravitons in the celestial basis. We also compute some simple one-loop corrections to the chiral algebras and derive the three-dimensional bulk theories for which these 2d algebras furnish an algebra of boundary local operators.
Celestial holography proposes a duality between the gravitational $\mathcal{S}$-matrix and correlators in a conformal field theory living on the celestial sphere. In this white paper, solicited for the 2022 Snowmass process, we review the motivation from asymptotic symmetries, fundamentals of the proposed holographic dictionary, potential applications to experiment and theory, and some important open questions.
These notes consist of 3 lectures on celestial holography given at the Pre-Strings school 2021. We start by reviewing how semiclassically, the subleading soft graviton theorem implies an enhancement of the Lorentz symmetry of scattering in four-dimensional asymptotically flat gravity to Virasoro. This leads to the construction of celestial amplitudes as $\mathcal{S}$-matrices computed in a basis of boost eigenstates. Both massless and massive asymptotic states are recast as insertions on the celestial sphere transforming as global conformal primaries under the Lorentz SL$(2, \mathbb{C})$. We c…
We construct two-dimensional quantum states associated to four-dimensional linearized rotating self-dual black holes in $(2,2)$ signature Klein space. The states are comprised of global conformal primaries circulating on the celestial torus, the Kleinian analog of the celestial sphere. By introducing a generalized tower of Goldstone operators we identify the states as coherent exponentiations carrying an infinite tower of ${\rm w}_{1+\infty}$ charges or soft hair. We relate our results to recent approaches to black hole scattering, including a connection to Wilson lines, $\mathcal{S}$-matrix r…
We compute one-loop corrections to the OPE of gluons in the celestial conformal field theory corresponding to Yang-Mills coupled to arbitrary matter. We exploit universal hard/soft factorization to derive an IR finite OPE for the hard gluon operators. This OPE involves logarithms and operators that resemble logarithmic partners of primary operators. We derive an exact all-loop OPE in a limit of the Higgs-regulated planar $\mathcal{N}=4$ super Yang-Mills theory.
Celestial Holography, A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Celestial Sphere
LPTHE, Physics Department, Faculty of Sciences, Ibnou Zohr University（伊本·佐赫尔大学理学院物理系理论物理实验室）；CRMEF, Regional Center for Education and Training Professions Marrakesh（马拉喀什地区教育培训中心）
Unifying soft and hard dynamics: The hard current algebra in celestial holography
Fudan Center for Mathematics and Interdisciplinary Study, Fudan University（复旦大学数学与交叉科学研究院）；Shanghai Institute for Mathematics and Interdisciplinary Sciences (SIMIS)（上海数学与交叉学科研究院）
The aim of these Lectures is to provide a brief overview of the subject of asymptotic symmetries of gauge and gravity theories in asymptotically flat spacetimes as background material for celestial holography.
Recent attempts at the construction of holography for asymptotically flat spacetimes have taken two different routes. Celestial holography, involving a two dimensional (2d) CFT dual to 4d Minkowski spacetime, has generated novel results in asymptotic symmetry and scattering amplitudes. A different formulation, using Carrollian CFTs, has been principally used to provide some evidence for flat holography in lower dimensions. Understanding of flatspace scattering has been lacking in the Carroll framework. In this work, using ideas from Celestial holography, we show that 3d Carrollian CFTs living …
Two-dimensional diffeomorphism symmetry can be described by an operator algebra extension of the well-known Virasoro algebra description of conformal symmetry. Utilizing this extension, this note explains why the conformal symmetry that appears in celestial holography should not be extended to diffeomorphism symmetry, a possibility that several authors have proposed. The description of the two-dimensional diffeomorphism algebra presented here might be useful for other purposes.
We show that a $3d$ sourced conformal Carrollian field theory has the right kinematic properties to holographically describe gravity in $4d$ asymptotically flat spacetime. The external sources encode the leaks of gravitational radiation at null infinity. The Ward identities of this theory are shown to reproduce those of the $2d$ celestial CFT after relating Carrollian to celestial operators. This suggests a new set of interplays between gravity in asymptotically flat spacetime, sourced conformal Carrollian field theory and celestial CFT.
In this paper, we study codimension two holography in flat spacetimes, based on the idea of the wedge holography. We propose that a region in a $d+1$ dimensional flat spacetime surrounded by two end of the world-branes, which are given by $d$ dimensional hyperbolic spaces, is dual to a conformal field theory (CFT) on a $d-1$ dimensional sphere. Similarly, we also propose that a $d+1$ dimensional region in the flat spacetime bounded by two $d$ dimensional de Sitter spaces is holographically dual to a CFT on a $d-1$ dimensional sphere. Our calculations of the partition function, holographic enta…
In a recent paper, here referred to as part I, we considered the celestial four-gluon amplitude with one gluon represented by the shadow transform of the corresponding primary field operator. This correlator is ill-defined because it contains branch points related to the presence of conformal blocks with complex spin. In this work, we adopt a procedure similar to minimal models and construct a single-valued completion of the shadow correlator, in the limit when the shadow is "soft." By following the approach of Dotsenko and Fateev, we obtain an integral representation of such a single-valued c…
Celestial holography expresses $\mathcal{S}$-matrix elements as correlators in a CFT living on the night sky. Poincaré invariance imposes additional selection rules on the allowed positions of operators. As a consequence, $n$-point correlators are only supported on certain patches of the celestial sphere, depending on the labeling of each operator as incoming/outgoing. Here we initiate a study of the celestial geometry, examining the kinematic support of celestial amplitudes for different crossing channels. We give simple geometric rules for determining this support. For $n\ge 5$, we can view …
In celestial holography, four-dimensional scattering amplitudes are considered as two-dimensional conformal correlators of a putative two-dimensional celestial conformal field theory (CCFT). The simplest way of converting momentum space amplitudes into CCFT correlators is by taking their Mellin transforms with respect to light-cone energies. For massless particles, like gluons, however, such a construction leads to three-point and four-point correlators that vanish everywhere except for a measure zero hypersurface of celestial coordinates. This is due to the four-dimensional momentum conservat…
We consider the Moyal deformation of self-dual gravity. In the conformal primary basis, holomorphic collinear limits of the amplitudes of this theory show that it enjoys a perturbatively exact symmetry algebra $LW_\wedge$ that generalises $Lw_\wedge$, the loop algebra of the wedge algebra of $w_{1+\infty}$, which appears in self-dual gravity.
Starting from gravity in asymptotically flat spacetime, the BMS momentum fluxes are constructed. These are non-local expressions of the solution space living on the celestial Riemann surface. They transform in the coadjoint representation of the extended BMS group and correspond to Virasoro primaries under the action of bulk superrotations. The relation between the BMS momentum fluxes and celestial CFT operators is then established: the supermomentum flux is related to the supertranslation operator and the super angular momentum flux is linked to the stress-energy tensor of the celestial CFT. …
Celestial amplitude is a new reformulation of momentum space scattering amplitude and offers a promising way for flat holography. In this paper, we study the celestial amplitude in $\mathcal N=4$ Super-Yang-Mills (SYM) theory aiming at understanding the role of superconformal symmetry in celestial holography. We first construct the superconformal generators acting on the celestial superfield which assembles all the on-shell fields in the multiplet together in terms of celestial variables and Grassmann parameters. These generators satisfy the superconformal algebra of $\mathcal N=4$ SYM theory.…
We study the Kaluza-Klein reduction of various $6d$ holomorphic theories. The KK reduction is analyzed in the BV formalism, resulting in theories that come from the holomorphic topological twist of $3d$ $\mathcal{N} = 2$ supersymmetric field theories. Effective interactions of the KK theories at the classical level can be obtained at all orders using homotopy transfer theorem. We also analyze a deformation of the theories that comes from deforming the spacetime geometry to $SL_2(\mathbb{C})$ due to the brane back-reaction. We study the boundary chiral algebras for the various KK theories. Usin…
We consider Lorentzian correlation functions in theories with non-relativistic Schrodinger symmetry. We employ the method developed by Skenderis and van Rees in which the contour in complex time defining a given correlation function is associated holographically with the gluing together of Euclidean and Lorentzian patches of spacetimes. This formalism extends appropriately to geometries with Schrodinger isometry.
We study the connection of Moyal deformations of self-dual gravity and self-dual Yang-Mills theory to chiral higher-spin theories, and also to deformations of operator algebras in celestial holography. The relation to Moyal deformations illuminates various aspects of the structure of chiral higher-spin theories. For instance, the appearance of the self-dual kinematic algebra in all the theories considered here leads via the double copy to vanishing tree-level scattering amplitudes. Regarding celestial holography, the Moyal deformation of self-dual gravity was recently shown to lead to the loop…
We use the correspondence between three-dimensional asymptotically flat spacetimes and two-dimensional contracted conformal field theories (CCFTs) to derive the stress tensor correlators of CCFT$_2$. On the gravity side we use the metric formulation instead of the Chern-Simons formulation of three-dimensional gravity. This method can also be used for four-dimensional case where there is no Chern-Simons formulation for the bulk theory.
We propose a quasi-local stress tensor for the four-dimensional asymptotically flat Robinson-Trautman geometries by taking the flat-space limit from the corresponding asymptotically AdS solutions. This stress tensor results in the correct charges of the generators of BMS symmetry if we define conformal infinity by an anisotropic scaling of the metric components. Using flat-space holography this stress tensor is related to expectation values of the stress tensor in a dual field theory called BMS-invariant field theory (BMSFT). We also calculate the two and three point functions of the proposed …
We explore the celestial holography proposal for non-trivial asymptotically flat backgrounds including the Coulomb field of a static and spinning point charge, their gravitational counterparts described by the Schwarzschild and Kerr metrics, as well as the Aichelburg-Sexl shockwave and spinning shockwave geometries and their electromagnetic cousins. We compute celestial two-point amplitudes on these Kerr-Schild type backgrounds which have the desirable feature, due to the presence of an external source, that they are non-vanishing for general operator positions and are not constrained by the k…
We study probe scalar correlation functions in a Solodukhin wormhole corresponding to the non-rotating BTZ black hole, as a toy model for microstate geometries thereof. Using real-time holography, we obtain the retarded scalar correlator in the wormhole geometry and quantitatively compare it to the result of the hybrid WKB method for the same correlator. We also calculate an off-diagonal correlator $\sim\langle H L L H' \rangle$ involving two different (heavy) wormhole states.
Motivated by the close connection of tensor models to the SYK model, we use representation theory to construct the complete set of gauge invariant observables for bosonic and fermionic tensor models. Correlation functions of the gauge invariant operators in the free theory are computed exactly. The gauge invariant operators close a ring. The structure constants of the ring are described explicitly. Finally, we construct a collective field theory description of the bosonic tensor model.
In strongly coupled conformal field theories with a large central charge important light degrees of freedom are the stress tensor and its composites, multi-stress tensors. We consider the OPE expansion of two-point functions of the stress tensor in thermal and heavy states and focus on the contributions from the stress tensor and double-stress tensors in four spacetime dimensions. We compare the results to the holographic finite temperature two-point functions and read off conformal data beyond the leading order in the large central charge expansion. In particular, we compute corrections to th…
As a continuation of our previous works studying the holographic principle in the plane-wave limit, we discuss the 3-point correlation functions of BMN operators with bosonic excitations when impurities are not conserved. We show that our proposal for a holographic mapping between the conformal OPE coefficients of super Yang-Mills theory and the 3-point vertex of the holographic string field theory is valid to the leading order in the large $μ$ limit. Our results provide for the first time a direct holographic relation for the 3-point correlators of BMN operators including impurity non-preserv…
We study the correlators of the 2d W_N minimal model in the semiclassical regime with large central charge from bulk viewpoint by utilizing open Wilson lines in sl(N) Chern-Simons gauge theory. We extend previous works for the tree level of bulk theory to incorporate loop corrections in this paper. We offer a way to regularize divergences associated with loop diagrams such that three point functions with two scalars and a higher spin current agree with the values fixed by the boundary W_N symmetry. With the prescription, we reproduce the conformal weight of the operator corresponding to a bulk…
Celestial operator product expansions (OPEs) arise from the collinear limit of scattering amplitudes and play a vital role in celestial holography. In this paper, we derive the celestial OPEs of massless fields in string theory from the worldsheet. By studying the worldsheet OPEs of vertex operators in worldsheet CFT and further examining their behaviors in the collinear limit, we find that new vertex operators for the massless fields in string theory are generated and become dominant in the collinear limit. Mellin transforming to the conformal basis yields exactly the celestial OPEs in celest…
