Perturbative Gauge Theory As A String Theory In Twistor Space

2003/12/15 by Edward Witten · 1 voice · 1,136 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Black Holes and Theoretical Physics #Gauge theory #Holomorphic function #Noncommutative and Quantum Gravity Theories #Quantum and Classical Electrodynamics #Scattering amplitude #String (physics) #String theory #Supermanifold #Topological string theory #Twistor space #Twistor theory #Yang–Mills theory #hep-ph #hep-th

paper · pdf · doi:10.1007/s00220-004-1187-3

published in Communications in Mathematical Physics 252(1-3), 189-258 (Springer Science+Business Media) · 97 pp

arxiv published 2003/12/15 · arxiv created 2004/10/06 · arxiv updated 2004/10/06 · openalex publication_date 2004/10/07 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05

Abstract

Perturbative scattering amplitudes in Yang-Mills theory have many unexpected properties, such as holomorphy of the maximally helicity violating amplitudes. To interpret these results, we Fourier transform the scattering amplitudes from momentum space to twistor space, and argue that the transformed amplitudes are supported on certain holomorphic curves. This in turn is apparently a consequence of an equivalence between the perturbative expansion of \cal N=4 super Yang-Mills theory and the D-instanton expansion of a certain string theory, namely the topological B model whose target space is the Calabi-Yau supermanifold \BbbCP^3|4.

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Discussions

• Penrose already nicked that one for twistors - arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/0... [bsky, 0 points, 0 comments]