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Scattering amplitudes and Wilson loops in twistor space. (English) Zbl 1290.81002

Springer Theses. Cham: Springer; Oxford: Univ. Oxford (Diss.) (ISBN 978-3-319-00908-7/hbk; 978-3-319-00909-4/ebook). xv, 118 p. (2014).
In scattering theory at tree level, maximally helicity violating (MHV) amplitudes with n external gauge bosons, for instance gluons, have been studied extensively over the years. They violate helicity conservation to the maximum extent possible. Surprisingly, tree amplitudes vanish as soon as all gauge bosons have the same helicity. One major result is that MHV amplitudes have an extremely simple form and can efficiently be calculated using the Parke-Taylor formula. Moreover, the MHV amplitudes were given a geometrical interpretation using Witten’s string theory in twistor space (instead of normal spacetime) which provided inspiration in developing new computational techniques. This is the starting point of the present thesis of Mat Bullimore from Oxford in collaboration with his two supervisors Lionel Mason and David Skinner. In his thesis, Bullimore provides a new insight into the correspondence between scattering amplitudes and null polygonal Wilson loops using methods from twistor theory. The thesis records many key insights of the last years. Still, many further insights are expected in the near future, and this thesis will become a valuable resource for theoretical physicists.

MSC:

81-02 Research exposition (monographs, survey articles) pertaining to quantum theory
81R25 Spinor and twistor methods applied to problems in quantum theory
81T13 Yang-Mills and other gauge theories in quantum field theory
81T20 Quantum field theory on curved space or space-time backgrounds
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