We study the soft theorems for photons and gravitons at finite temperatures using the thermofield dynamics approach. The soft factors lose universality at finite temperatures as the soft amplitudes depend on the nature (or spin) of the particles participating in the scattering processes. However, at low temperatures, a universal behaviour is observed in the cross-section of the soft processes. Further, we obtain the thermal contribution to the electromagnetic and gravitational memory effects and show that they are related to the soft factors consistently. The expected zero temperature results are obtained from the soft factors and memories. The thermal effects in soft theorems and memories seem to be sensitive to the spin of the particles involved in scattering.
We study the behavior of geodesics in the plane-fronted wave background of the three-dimensional (3D) gravity with propagating torsion, which possesses only massive degrees of freedom. We discover the velocity memory effect, in contrast to the current belief that its existence is due to the presence of soft particles.
The transit of a gravitating radiation pulse past arrays of detectors stationed near future null infinity in the vacuum is considered. It is shown that the relative positions and clock times of the detectors before and after the radiation transit differ by a BMS supertranslation. An explicit expression for the supertranslation in terms of moments of the radiation energy flux is given. The relative spatial displacement found for a pair of nearby detectors reproduces the well-known and potentially measurable gravitational memory effect. The displacement memory formula is shown to be equivalent t…
It is known that soft photon and graviton theorems can be regarded as the Ward-Takahashi identities of asymptotic symmetries. In this paper, we consider soft theorem for pions, i.e., Nambu-Goldstone bosons associated with a spontaneously broken axial symmetry. The soft pion theorem is written as the Ward-Takahashi identities of the $S$-matrix under asymptotic transformations. We investigate the asymptotic dynamics, and find that the conservation of charges generating the asymptotic transformations can be interpreted as a pion memory effect.
Classical soft photon and soft graviton theorems determine long wavelength electromagnetic and gravitational waveforms for a general classical scattering process in terms of the electric charges and asymptotic momenta of the ingoing and outgoing macroscopic objects. Performing Fourier transformation of the electromagnetic and gravitational waveforms in the frequency variable one finds electromagnetic and gravitational waveforms at late and early retarded time. Here extending the formalism developed in \cite{1912.06413}, we derive sub-subleading electromagnetic and gravitational waveforms which…
It is now well understood that Ward identities associated to the (extended) BMS algebra are equivalent to single soft graviton theorems. In this work, we show that if we consider nested Ward identities constructed out of two BMS charges, a class of double soft factorization theorems can be recovered. By making connections with earlier works in the literature, we argue that at the sub-leading order, these double soft graviton theorems are the so-called consecutive double soft graviton theorems. We also show how these nested Ward identities can be understood as Ward identities associated to BMS …
We derive the subleading soft graviton theorem in a generic quantum theory of gravity for arbitrary number of soft external gravitons and arbitrary number of finite energy external states carrying arbitrary mass and spin. Our results are valid to all orders in perturbation theory when the number of non-compact space-time dimensions is six or more, but only for tree amplitudes for five or less non-compact space-time dimensions due to enhanced contribution to loop amplitudes from the infrared region.
Strominger and his collaborators pioneered the study of equivalence between soft theorems and asymptotic conservation laws. We study this equivalence in the context of loop level subleading soft photon theorem for massless scalar QED in presence of dynamical gravity. Motivated by Campiglia and Laddha \cite{1903.09133}, we show that the Sahoo-Sen soft photon theorem \cite{1808.03288} for loop amplitudes is equivalent to an asymptotic conservation law. This asymptotic charge is directly related to the dressing of fields due to long range forces exclusively present in four spacetime dimensions. I…
We derive the leading spin-dependent gravitational tail memory, which appears at the second post-Minkowskian (2 PM) order and behaves as $u^{-2}$ for large retarded time $u$. This result follows from classical soft graviton theorem at order $ω\lnω$ as a low-frequency expansion of gravitational waveform with frequency $ω$. First, we conjecture the result from the classical limit of quantum soft graviton theorem up to sub-subleading order in soft expansion and then we derive it for a classical scattering process without any reference to the soft graviton theorem. The final result of the gravitat…
We identify in Einstein gravity an asymptotic spin-$2$ charge aspect whose conservation equation gives rise, after quantization, to the sub-subleading soft theorem. Our treatment reveals that this spin-$2$ charge generates a non-local spacetime symmetry represented at null infinity by pseudo-vector fields. Moreover, we demonstrate that the non-linear nature of Einstein's equations is reflected in the Ward identity through collinear corrections to the sub-subleading soft theorem. Our analysis also provides a unified treatment of the universal soft theorems as conservation equations for the spin…
Motivated by the equivalence between soft graviton theorem and Ward identities for the supertranslation symmetries belonging to the BMS group, we propose a new extension (different from the so-called extended BMS) of the BMS group which is a semi-direct product of supertranslations and Diff(S^2). We propose a definition for the canonical generators associated to the smooth diffeomorphisms and show that the resulting Ward identities are equivalent to the subleading soft graviton theorem of Cachazo and Strominger.
de Sitter corrections to supertranslation Ward identity and soft graviton theorem
School of Physics, The University of Electronic Science and Technology of China（电子科技大学物理学院）；Indian Institute of Information Technology Allahabad (IIITA)（安拉阿巴德信息技术学院）
We consider the consequences of the dual gravitational charges for the phase space of radiating modes, and find that they imply a new soft NUT theorem. In particular, we argue that the existence of these new charges removes the need for imposing boundary conditions at spacelike infinity that would otherwise preclude the existence of NUT charges.
Stueckelberg QED with massive photon is known to be renormalizable. But the limit of the mass going to zero is interesting because it brings the resolution to infrared questions through the role of Stueckelberg field at null infinity in addition to providing new asymptotic symmetries. Such symmetries facilitate the soft photon theorems also.
We have studied scattering of a probe particle by a four dimensional AdS-Schwarzschild black hole at large impact factor. Our analysis is consistent perturbatively to leading order in the AdS radius and black hole mass parameter. Next we define a proper "soft limit" of the radiation and extract out the "soft factor" from it. We find the correction to the well known flat space Classical Soft graviton theorem due to the presence of an AdS background.
We apply the recently developed formalism by Kosower, Maybee and O'Connell (KMO) to analyse the soft electromagnetic and soft gravitational radiation emitted by particles without spin in Four and higher dimensions. We use this formalism in conjunction with quantum soft theorems to derive radiative electro-magnetic and gravitational fields in low frequency expansion and to next to leading order in the coupling. We show that in all dimensions, the classical limit of sub-leading soft (photon and graviton) theorems is consistent with the classical soft theorems proved by Sen et al in a series of p…
We define a perturbative S-matrix in a local patch of de Sitter background in the limit when the curvature length scale ($\ell$) is large and study the 'soft' behavior of the scalar QED amplitudes in de Sitter spacetime in generic dimensions. We obtain the leading and subleading perturbative corrections to flat space soft photon theorems in the large $\ell$ limit, and comment on the universality of these corrections. We compare our results with the electromagnetic memory tails obtained earlier in $d=4$ using classical radiation analysis.
We investigate the relation between the subleading soft graviton theorem and asymptotic symmetries in gravity in even dimensions $d=2+2m$ higher than four. After rewriting the subleading soft graviton theorem as a Ward identity, we argue that the charges of such identity generate Diff$(S^{2m})$. In order to show that, we propose suitable commutation relation among certain components of the metric fields. As a result, all Diff$(S^{2m})$ transformations are symmetries of gravitational scattering.
The "gravitational memory effect" due to an exact plane wave provides us with an elementary description of the diffeomorphisms associated with soft gravitons. It is explained how the presence of the latter may be detected by observing the motion of freely falling particles or other forms of gravitational wave detection. Numerical calculations confirm the relevance of the first, second and third time integrals of the Riemann tensor pointed out earlier. Solutions for various profiles are constructed. It is also shown how to extend our treatment to Einstein-Maxwell plane waves and a midi-superspa…
In this work, we revisit unitary irreducible representations of the Bondi-Metzner-Sachs (BMS) group discovered by McCarthy. Representations are labelled by an infinite number of super-momenta in addition to four-momentum. Tensor products of these irreducible representations lead to particle-like states dressed by soft gravitational modes. Conservation of 4-momentum and supermomentum in the scattering of such states leads to a memory effect encoded in the outgoing soft modes. We note there exist irreducible representations corresponding to soft states with strictly vanishing four-momentum, whic…
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 derive cosmological soft theorems for solids coupled to gravity. To this end, we first derive all cosmological adiabatic modes for solids, which display the interesting novelty of non-vanishing anisotropic stresses on large scales. Then, from the corresponding symmetries of the action of perturbations we compute the leading order related soft theorems using the operator product expansion. For the scalar bispectrum, we re-derive the result that Maldacena's consistency relation is recovered only upon angular averaging over the long mode direction. In addition, we find theorems for soft tensor…
In this paper, we present a new type of electromagnetic memory. It is a `magnetic' type, or B mode, radiation memory effect. Rather than a residual velocity, we find a position displacement of a charged particle induced by the B mode radiation with memory. We find two types of electromagnetic displacement (ordinary and null). We also show that the null electromagnetic memory formulas are nothing but a Fourier transformation of soft photon theorems.
Double-soft theorems, like its single-soft counterparts, arises from the underlying symmetry principles that constrain the interactions of massless particles. While single soft theorems can be derived in a non-perturbative fashion by employing current algebras, recent attempts of extending such an approach to known double soft theorems has been met with difficulties. In this work, we have traced the difficulty to two inequivalent expansion schemes, depending on whether the soft limit is taken asymmetrically or symmetrically, which we denote as type A and B respectively. We show that soft-behav…
Recently, the leading soft gluon theorem with single soft emission was shown to be the Ward identity of a two dimensional $\cal G$-Kac-Moody symmetry. In this note, we show that the leading soft gluon theorem can be interpreted as the Ward identity for the asymptotic symmetries of non-Abelian gauge theory. We further argue that the sub-leading soft gluon theorem can follow from the same symmetry.
We derive soft theorems for theories in which time symmetries -- symmetries that involve the transformation of time, an example of which are Lorentz boosts -- are spontaneously broken. The soft theorems involve unequal-time correlation functions with the insertion of a soft Goldstone in the far past. Explicit checks are provided for several examples, including the effective theory of a relativistic superfluid and the effective field theory of inflation. We discuss how in certain cases these unequal-time identities capture information at the level of observables that cannot be seen purely in te…
A central feature of scattering amplitudes in gravity or gauge theory is the existence of a variety of energetically soft theorems which put constraints on the amplitudes. Celestial amplitudes which are obtained from momentum-space amplitudes by a Mellin transform over the external particle energies cannot obey the usual energetically soft theorems. Instead, the symmetries of the celestial sphere imply that the scattering of conformally soft particles whose conformal weights under the 4D Lorentz group SL(2,C) are taken to zero obey special relations. Such conformally soft theorems have recentl…
Recently Sahoo and Sen obtained a series of remarkable results concerning sub-leading soft photon and graviton theorems in four dimensions. Even though the S- matrix is infrared divergent, they have shown that the sub-leading soft theorems are well defined and exact statements in QED and perturbative Quantum Gravity. However unlike the well studied Cachazo-Strominger soft theorems in tree-level amplitudes, the new sub-leading soft expansion is at the order ln ω (where ω is the soft frequency) and the corresponding soft factors structurally show completely different properties then their tree-l…
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.
Soft theorems can be recast as Ward identities of asymptotic symmetries. We review such relation for the leading and subleading soft graviton theorems in arbitrary even dimensions. While soft theorems are trivially generalized to dimensions higher than four, the charges of asymptotic symmetries are plagued by divergences requiring a renormalization. We argue that the renormalized charges of these symmetries can be determined by rewriting soft theorems as Ward identities. In order to show that the charges of such identities generate asymptotic symmetries, we propose a suitable commutation relat…
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…
We study the soft graviton theorem recently proposed by Cachazo and Strominger. We employ the Cachazo, He and Yuan formalism to show that the next to subleading order soft factor for gravity is universal at tree level in arbitrary dimensions.
In this paper we study the supersymmetric generalization of the new soft theorem which was proposed by Cachazo and Strominger recently. At tree level, we prove the validity of the super soft theorems in both ${\cal N}=4$ super-Yang-Mills theory and ${\cal N}=8$ supergravity using super-BCFW recursion relations. We verify these theorems exactly by showing some examples.
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 …
Extensions of the photon and graviton soft theorems are derived in 4d local effective field theories with massless particles of arbitrary spin. We prove that effective operators can result in new terms in the soft theorems at subleading order for photons and subsubleading order for gravitons. The new soft terms are unique and we provide a complete classification of all local operators responsible for such modifications. We show that no local operators can modify the subleading soft graviton theorem. The soft limits are taken in a manifestly on-locus manner using a complex double deformation of…
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.
The CHY formula which describes an $n$-point tree level scattering amplitude for scalars, gluons or gravitons in arbitrary dimension [22], is used to prove the sub-sub-leading soft- graviton theorem recently proposed by Cachazo and Strominger [13].
We show that the distributional nature of soft theorems requires the soft limit expansion to take priority over the regulator expansion of Feynman loop integrals. We start the study of soft graviton theorems at loop level from this perspective by considering a five-particle one-loop amplitude in ${\cal N}=8$ supergravity. Surprisingly, we find that a soft theorem recently introduced by one of the authors and Strominger is not renormalized in this case. Computations are done in $4-2ε$ dimensions and for terms of order $ε^{-2}$, $ε^{-1}$ and $ε^{0}$.
We obtain the subleading soft theorem for a generic theory of quantum gravity, for arbitrary number of soft photons and gravitons and for arbitrary number of finite energy particles with arbitrary mass and spin when all the soft particles are soft in the same rate. This result is valid at tree level for spacetime dimensions equal to four and five and to all loops in spacetime dimensions greater than five. We verify that in classical limit low energy photon and graviton radiation decouple from each other.
Following up on the recent work of Cachazo, He and Yuan \cite{arXiv:1503.04816 [hep-th]}, we derive the double soft graviton theorem in perturbative gravity. We show that the double soft theorem derived using CHY formula precisely matches with the perturbative computation involving Feynman diagrams. In particular, we find how certain delicate limits of Feynman diagrams play an important role in obtaining this equivalence.
We study soft theorems in a broader context, addressing their fate at loop level and their universality in effective field theories and string theory. We argue that for gauge theories in the planar limit, loop-level soft gluon theorems can be made manifest already at the integrand level. In particular, we show that the planar integrand for N=4 SYM satisfies the tree-level soft theorem to all orders in perturbation theory and provide strong evidence to this effect for integrands in N<4 SYM. We consider soft theorems for non-supersymmetric Yang-Mills theories and gravity, and show the validity o…
We demonstrate that the tree level amplitudes and the explicit formulas of soft factors can be uniquely determined by soft theorems and the universality of soft factors. By imposing the soft theorems and the universality, as well as the assumption of double copy, we reconstruct single trace Yang-Millsscalar amplitudes and pure Yang-Mills amplitudes, in the expanded formulas. The explicit formulas of soft factors for the bi-adjoint scalar and gluon are also determined. The expansions of Yang-Mills-scalar and Yang-Mills amplitudes can be extended to Einstein-Yang-Mills and gravitational amplitud…
The equivalence between the holographic renormalization group and the soft dilaton theorem is shown for a class of wrapped metrics solutions of the string beta function equations for the bosonic string.
In this paper, we initiate the study of multi-flavor Galileon theories using the methods of scattering amplitudes. We explore this topic from different perspectives and extend the techniques employed so far mainly in the single-flavor case. This includes soft theorems, generalized soft theorems with non-trivial right-hand side, Galileon dualities, soft bootstrap and bonus relations. We demonstrate new properties on two examples, the multi-flavor U(N) Galileon and the three-flavor U(2)/U(1) Galileon.
We study the behaviour of Yang-Mills and gravity amplitudes under the soft limit in the four-dimensional ambitwistor string formalism and derive their soft theorems to arbitrary order. For this purpose, we apply some mathematics. Methods of combinatorics are used for the expansion of $δ$ functions, and knowledge of graph theory is used for the expansion of reduced determinants. Based on these preliminaries, we expand the formulas of Yang-Mills and gravity amplitudes about the soft parameter $ε$, and obtain soft theorems to arbitrary order.
We investigate the new soft graviton theorem recently proposed in arXiv:1404.4091. We use the CHY formula to prove this universal formula for both Yang-Mills theory and gravity scattering amplitudes at tree level in arbitrary dimension.
University of British Columbia（不列颠哥伦比亚大学）；Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques（高等科学研究所）；Walter Burke Institute for Theoretical Physics, Caltech（加州理工学院沃尔特·伯克理论物理研究所）
