Are perturbative superstring amplitudes for massless external states just an $α'$ dressing of super-Yang-Mills/supergravity? This is the case at tree level, where the worldsheet correlators at $n$ points can be written in a natural worldsheet basis, such that the kinematic coefficients are BCJ numerators of super-Yang-Mills/supergravity amplitudes, with the non-trivial $α'$ dependence carried only by the Koba-Nielsen factor. Motivated by this construction, we present for the first time a complete worldsheet basis of one-loop superstring correlators at $n$ points. All the kinematic coefficients associated to non-cusp basis elements are identified with pieces of one-loop BCJ numerators of super-Yang-Mills/supergravity. This determines the superstring correlators up to 15 points in terms of field theory. Starting at 16 points (modular weight 12), the worldsheet basis may include cusp forms, which vanish in the field-theory degeneration, such that the associated coefficients cannot be fixed in this manner. Therefore, the one-loop answer to our initial question is determined, at high multiplicity, by whether the coefficients of cusp basis elements vanish or not. As a by-product of our construction, we present new constraints on the field-theory limit that result from string modularity. These are expressed as additional relations among one-loop BCJ numerators in maximal super-Yang-Mills/supergravity starting at 6 points.
We extend the Berkovits-Maldacena prescription for MHV amplitudes of the open superstring to the closed superstring, showing that in the α'=0 limit it reduces to the result of supergravity found recently by Hodges. We also verify that this prescription calculates the correct superstring tree level MHV amplitude for 4 gravitons including α' corrections.
We compute one-loop threshold corrections to R^4 terms in N= 5,6 supergravity vacua of Type II superstrings. We then discuss non-perturbative corrections generated by asymmetric D-brane instantons. Finally we derive generating functions for MHV amplitudes at tree level in N = 5, 6 supergravities.
The discovery of pure spinor formalism makes the computation of superstring scattering amplitudes possible. In this paper, we will illustrate how computer algebra system Cadabra is used in computing the supersymmetric amplitude in pure spinor formalism and provide the source code that computes the tree-level massless 5-gluon amplitude.
Multi-loop interaction amplitudes in the theory of the closed, oriented superstrings are obtained by the integration of local amplitudes which are represented by a sum of the spinning string local amplitudes. The last local amplitudes are given explicitly through super-Schottky group parameters and interaction vertex coordinates on the $(1|1)$ complex supermanifold. The integration is ambiguous under those replacements of the integration variables which admix Grassmann variables to the boson ones. So the calculation is guided by a preservation of local symmetries of the superstring. The obtain…
We develop calculational tools to determine higher loop superstring correlators involving massless fermionic and spin fields in four space time dimensions. These correlation functions are basic ingredients for the calculation of loop amplitudes involving both bosons and fermions in D=4 heterotic and superstring theories. To obtain the full amplitudes in Lorentz covariant form the loop correlators of fermionic and spin fields have to be expressed in terms of SO(1,3) tensors. This is one of the main achievements in this work.
Feynman amplitudes of light-cone gauge string field theory for Type II superstrings are shown to be equivalent to those of the covariant first quantized formulation. In order to regularize the contact term divergences, we consider the theory in a linear dilaton background $Φ_{\mathrm{dilaton}}=-iQX^{1}$. We show that the scattering amplitudes are correctly reproduced in the limit $Q\to0$, even with Ramond sector external lines.
We propose a procedure to determine the moduli-space integrands of loop-level superstring amplitudes for massless external states in terms of the field theory limit. We focus on the type II superstring. The procedure is to: (i) take a supergravity loop integrand written in a BCJ double-copy representation, (ii) use the loop-level scattering equations to translate that integrand into the ambitwistor string moduli-space integrand, localised on the nodal Riemann sphere, and (iii) uplift that formula to one on the higher-genus surface valid for the superstring, guided by modular invariance. We sho…
We calculate the chiral string amplitude in pure spinor formalism and take four point amplitude as an example. The method could be easily generalized to $N$ point amplitude by complicated calculations. By doing the usual calculations of string theory first and using a special singular gauge limit, we produce the amplitude with the integral over Dirac $δ$-functions. The Bosonic part of the amplitude matches the CHY amplitude and the Fermionic part gives us the supersymmetric generalization of CHY amplitude. Finally, we also check the dependence on boundary condition for heterotic chiral string …
Using the pure spinor formalism, a particular superstring scattering amplitude involving one closed string and $N$ open string vertex operators in $\mathrm{AdS}{}_5 \times \mathrm{S}^5$ is studied. It is shown that the tree-level amplitude containing one supergravity state and $N$ super-Yang-Mills states located on D3-branes near the AdS${}_5$ boundary can be expressed as a $d=4$ ${\cal N}=4$ harmonic superspace integral in terms of the supergravity and super-Yang-Mills superfields.
We study the odd spin structure contributions to the multiloop amplitudes of light-cone gauge superstring field theory. We show that they coincide with the amplitudes in the conformal gauge with two of the vertex operators chosen to be in the pictures different from the standard choice, namely (-1,-1) picture in the type II case and -1 picture in the heterotic case. We also show that the contact term divergences can be regularized in the same way as in the amplitudes for the even structures and we get the amplitudes which coincide with those obtained from the first-quantized approach.
On-shell superspace techniques are used to quantify R-symmetry violation in type IIB superstring theory amplitudes in a flat background in ten dimensions. This shows the existence of a particularly simple class of non-vanishing amplitudes in this theory which violate R-symmetry maximally. General properties of the class and some of its extensions are established which at string tree level are shown to determine the first three non-trivial effective field theory contributions to all multiplicity. This leads to a natural conjecture for the exact analytic part of the first two of these.
In this paper the pure spinor formalism is used to obtain a compact expression for the superstring N-point disk amplitude. The color ordered string amplitude is given by a sum over (N-3)! super Yang-Mills subamplitudes multiplied by multiple Gaussian hypergeometric functions. In order to obtain this result, the cohomology structure of the pure spinor superspace is exploited to generalize the Berends-Giele method of computing super Yang-Mills amplitudes. The method was briefly presented in [1], and this paper elaborates on the details and contains higher-rank examples of building blocks and ass…
On cruel mistakes in the calculation of multi-loop superstring amplitudes, the ambiguity of the modular integral and the integration over the module space
Based on an extension of the holographic principle to superspace, we provide a strong-coupling description of smooth super Wilson loops in terms of minimal surfaces of the $AdS_5 \times S^5$ superstring. We employ the classical integrability of the Green-Schwarz superstring on $AdS_5 \times S^5$ to derive the superconformal and Yangian $Y[\mathfrak{psu}(2,2|4)]$ Ward identities for the super Wilson loop, thus extending the strong coupling results obtained for the Maldacena-Wilson loop. In the course of the derivation, we determine the minimal surface solution up to third order in an expansion …
We compute the massive-sector worldsheet S-matrix for superstring theories in AdS(n) x S(n) x T(10-2n) (with n=2,3,5) in the near BMN expansion up to one-loop order in inverse string tension. We show that, after taking into account the wave function renormalization, the one-loop S-matrix is UV finite. In an appropriate regularization scheme the S-matrix is consistent with the underlying symmetries of the superstring theory, i.e. for the n=3,5 cases it coincides with the one implied by the light-cone gauge symmetries with the dressing phases determined from the crossing equations. For the n=2,3…
Using the results recently obtained for computing integrals over (non-minimal) pure spinor superspace, we compute the coefficient of the massless two-loop four-point amplitude from first principles. Contrasting with the mathematical difficulties in the RNS formalism where unknown normalizations of chiral determinant formulae force the two-loop coefficient to be determined only indirectly through factorization, the computation in the pure spinor formalism can be smoothly carried out.
