Symmetry algebras deriving from towers of soft theorems can be deformed by a short list of higher-dimension Wilsonian corrections to the effective action. We study the simplest of these deformations in gauge theory arising from a massless complex scalar coupled to $F^2$. The soft gauge symmetry '$s$-algebra', compactly realized as a higher-spin current algebra acting on the celestial sphere, is deformed and enlarged to an associative algebra containing soft scalar generators. This deformed soft algebra is found to be non-abelian even in abelian gauge theory. A two-parameter family of central extensions of the $s$-subalgebra are generated by shifting and decoupling the scalar generators. It is shown that these central extensions can also be generated by expanding around a certain non-trivial but Lorentz invariant shockwave type background for the scalar field.
We use 5-brane webs to study the two-dimensional space of supersymmetric mass deformations of higher rank generalizations of the 5d $E_1$ and $\tilde{E}_1$ theories. Some of the resulting IR phases are described by IR free supersymmetric gauge theories, while others correspond to interacting fixed points. The number of different phases appears to grow with the rank. The space of deformations is qualitatively different for the even and odd rank cases, but that of the even (odd) rank $E_1$ theory is similar to that of the odd (even) rank $\tilde{E}_1$ theory. One result of our analysis predicts …
We study F-Theory compactifications to four dimensions that exhibit discrete gauge symmetries. Geometrically these arise by deforming elliptic fibrations with two sections to a genus-one fibration with a bi-section. From a four-dimensional field-theory perspective they are remnant symmetries from a Higgsed U(1) gauge symmetry. We implement such symmetries in the presence of an additional SU(5) symmetry and associated matter fields, giving a geometric prescription for calculating the induced discrete charge for the matter curves and showing the absence of Yukawa couplings that are forbidden by …
In this letter we show that the soft behaviour of photons and graviton amplitudes, after projection, can be determined to infinite order in soft expansion via ordinary on-shell gauge invariance. In particular, as one of the particle's momenta becomes soft, gauge invariance relates the non-singular diagrams of an n-point amplitude to that of the singular ones up to possible homogeneous terms. We demonstrate that with a particular projection of the soft-limit, the homogeneous terms do not contribute, and one arrives at an infinite soft theorem. This reproduces the result recently derived from th…
In this note, I show that the recently proposed subleading soft factor in massless gauge theory uniquely follows from conformal symmetry of tree-level gauge theory amplitudes in four dimensions.
Electromagnetism contains an infinite dimensional symmetry group of large gauge transformations. This gives rise to an infinite number of conserved quantities called "soft charges" via Noether's theorem. When charged particles scatter, the conservation of soft charge constrains the overall amount of radiation emitted per angle. Here we describe the physical consequences of soft charge conservation and give fresh accounts of the roles of spacelike and timelike infinity in these conservation laws. We conclude by exploring the possibility of creating a dual boundary theory of electromagnetism.
We investigate the tree-level S-matrix in gauge theories and open superstring theory with several soft particles. We show that scattering amplitudes with two or three soft gluons of non-identical helicities behave universally in the limit, with multi-soft factors which are not the product of individual soft gluon factors. The results are obtained from the BCFW recursion relations in four dimensions, and further extended to arbitrary dimensions using the CHY formula. We also find new soft theorems for double soft limits of scalars and fermions in N=4 and pure N=2 SYM. Finally, we show that the …
We report progress in computing and analyzing all tree amplitudes in ABJM theory. Inspired by the isomorphism between the orthogonal Grassmannian and the pure spinor geometries, we adopt a new gauge, called u-gauge, for evaluating the orthogonal Grassmannian integral for ABJM amplitudes. We carry out the integral explicitly for the 8-point amplitude and obtain the complete supersymmetric amplitude. The physical and spurious poles arise from the integral as expected from on-shell diagrams. We also derive a double scalar soft theorem of ABJM amplitudes and verify it for known amplitudes.
Asymptotic particle states in four-dimensional celestial scattering amplitudes are labelled by their $SL(2,\mathbb{C})$ Lorentz/conformal weights $(h,\bar{h})$ rather than the usual energy-momentum four-vector. These boost eigenstates involve a superposition of all energies. As such, celestial gluon (or photon) scattering cannot obey the usual (energetically) soft theorems. In this paper we show that tree-level celestial gluon scattering, in theories with sufficiently soft UV behavior, instead obeys conformally soft theorems involving $h \to 0$ or $\bar{h} \to 0$. Unlike the energetically soft…
Lysov, Pasterski and Strominger have shown how Low's subleading soft photon theorem can be understood as Ward identities of new symmetries of massless QED. In this paper we offer a different perspective and show that there exists a class of large $U(1)$ gauge transformations such that (i) the associated (electric and magnetic) charges can be computed from first principles (ii) their Ward identities are equivalent to Low's theorem. Our framework paves the way to analyze the sub-subleading theorem in gravity in terms of Ward identities associated to large diffeomorphisms.
In this short note, we analyse low energy electromagnetic radiation for spinning particles using the KMOC formalism and the quantum soft theorems. In particular, we study low energy electromagnetic radiation emitted by the so-called $\sqrt{\text{Kerr}}$ object. The $\sqrt{\text{Kerr}}$ is a solution of the free Maxwell's equations with infinite multipole moments expressed solely in terms of the charge(Q), mass(m) and spin(S) of the classical object . We consider the scattering of two $\sqrt{\text{Kerr}}$ particles and using the KMOC formalism generalised to spinning particles, we perturbativel…
In theories of Einstein gravity coupled with a dilaton and a two-form, a soft theorem for the two-form, known as the Kalb-Ramond B-field, has so far been missing. In this work we fill the gap, and in turn formulate a unified soft theorem valid for gravitons, dilatons and B-fields in any tree-level scattering amplitude involving the three massless states. The new soft theorem is fixed by means of on-shell gauge invariance and enters at the subleading order of the graviton's soft theorem. In contrast to the subsubleading soft behavior of gravitons and dilatons, we show that the soft behavior of …
In this work we employ the MHV technique to show that scattering amplitudes with any number of consecutive soft particles behave universally in the multi-soft limit in which all particles go soft simultaneously. After identifying the diagrams which give the leading contribution we give the general rules for writing down compact expressions for the multi-soft factor of m gluons, k of which have negative helicity. We explicitly consider the cases where k equals 1 and 2. In N =4 SYM, the multi-soft factors of 2 scalars or 2 fermions forming a singlet of SU(4) R-symmetry, and m-2 positive helicity…
A deep connection has been recently established between soft theorems and symmetries at null infinity in gravity and gauge theories, recasting the former as Ward identities of the latter. In particular, different orders (in the frequency of the soft particle) in the soft theorems are believed to be controlled by different asymptotic symmetries. In this paper we argue that this needs not be the case by focusing on the soft photon theorem. We argue that the sub-leading soft factor follows from the same symmetry responsible for the leading one, namely certain residual (large) gauge transformation…
We study exponentiated soft exchange in $d+2$ dimensional gauge and gravitational theories using the celestial CFT formalism. These models exhibit spontaneously broken asymptotic symmetries generated by gauge transformations with non-compact support, and the effective dynamics of the associated Goldstone "edge" mode is expected to be $d$-dimensional. The introduction of an infrared regulator also explicitly breaks these symmetries so the edge mode in the regulated theory is really a $d$-dimensional pseudo-Goldstone boson. Symmetry considerations determine the leading terms in the effective act…
We investigate the large gauge transformations of a two-form gauge field in four-dimensional Minkowski space. Our goal is to establish a connection between these asymptotic symmetries and the scalar soft theorems described by Campiglia, Coito and Mizera whereas the soft scalar mode should be interpreted in terms of its two-form dual counterpart.
We show that the soft photon, gluon and graviton theorems can be understood as the Ward-Takahashi identities of large gauge transformation, i.e., diffeomorphism that does not fall off at spatial infinity. We found infinitely many new identities which constrain the higher order soft behavior of the gauge bosons and gravitons in scattering amplitudes of gauge and gravity theories. Diagrammatic representations of these soft theorems are presented.
Recently, large gauge transformation (LGT), the residual gauge symmetry after gauge fixing that survives at null infinity, has drawn much attention concerning soft theorems and the memory effect. We point out that LGT charges in quantum electrodynamics are in fact one of non-compact generators of the two dimensional Euclidean group. Moreover, by comparing two equivalent descriptions of gauge transformation, we suggest that LGT is simply another way of describing the gauged little group for massless soft photons.
We consider and derive the gravitational soft theorem up to the sub-subleading power from the perspective of effective Lagrangians. The emergent soft gauge symmetries of the effective Lagrangian provide a transparent explanation of why soft graviton emission is universal to sub-subleading power, but gauge boson emission is not. They also suggest a physical interpretation of the form of the soft factors in terms of the charges related to the soft transformations and the kinematics of the multipole expansion. The derivation is done directly at Lagrangian level, resulting in an operatorial form o…
We investigate asymptotic symmetries which preserve the Bondi gauge conditions but do not preserve the asymptotic falloff conditions for the metric near the null boundary, and their connection to soft graviton theorems for scattering amplitudes. These include generalized superrotation symmetries parameterized by a smooth vector field $Y^{A}$ obeying $D_{A}Y^{A} = 0$, for which we show that the associated conserved charge can be derived by applying the Noether procedure to the Einstein-Katz action. We also discuss the connection between asymptotic symmetries and the conserved charge associated …
We work out the phenomenology of a model of supersymmetry breaking in the presence of a tiny (tunable) positive cosmological constant, proposed by the authors in arXiv:1403.1534. It utilises a single chiral multiplet with a gauged shift symmetry, that can be identified with the string dilaton (or an appropriate compactification modulus). The model is coupled to the MSSM, leading to calculable soft supersymmetry breaking masses and a distinct low energy phenomenology that allows to differentiate it from other models of supersymmetry breaking and mediation mechanisms.
Massless-Massive Amplitude Correspondence II: Constructive Massive Amplitudes in Standard Model
Institute of Theoretical Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院理论物理研究所）；School of Physical Sciences, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences（中国科学院大学物理科学学院）；School of Science and Engineering, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen（香港中文大学（深圳）理工学院）；Hangzhou Institute for Advanced Study, UCAS（杭州高等研究院，中国科学院大学）；International Center for Theoretical Physics Asia-Pacific（亚太理论物理中心）
We perform a careful study of the infrared sector of massless non-abelian gauge theories in four-dimensional Minkowski spacetime using the covariant phase space formalism, taking into account the boundary contributions arising from the gauge sector of the theory. Upon quantization, we show that the boundary contributions lead to an infinite degeneracy of the vacua. The Hilbert space of the vacuum sector is not only shown to be remarkably simple, but also universal. We derive a Ward identity that relates the n-point amplitude between two generic in- and out-vacuum states to the one computed in …
A consistent quantum treatment of general gauge theories with an arbitrary gauge-fixing in the presence of soft breaking of the BRST symmetry in the field-antifield formalism is developed. It is based on a gauged (involving a field-dependent parameter) version of finite BRST transformations. The prescription allows one to restore the gauge-independence of the effective action at its extremals and therefore also that of the conventional $S$-matrix for a theory with BRST-breaking terms being additively introduced into a BRST-invariant action in order to achieve a consistency of the functional in…
We construct "soft-collinear gravity", the effective field theory which describes the interaction of collinear and soft gravitons with matter (and themselves), to all orders in the soft-collinear power expansion. Despite the absence of collinear divergences in gravity at leading power, the construction exhibits remarkable similarities with soft-collinear effective theory of QCD (gauge fields). It reveals an emergent soft background gauge symmetry, which allows for a manifestly gauge-invariant representation of the interactions in terms of a soft covariant derivative, the soft Riemann tensor, a…
