2008/09/05 by Stephen G. Naculich, Stephen G Naculich, Horatiu Nastase +2 路 2 citations
Physics and Astronomy 路 #Black Holes and Theoretical Physics #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies #Quantum Chromodynamics and Particle Interactions #hep-th
paper 路 pdf 路 doi:10.1088/1126-6708/2008/11/018
published as JHEP0811:018,2008 路 30 pages; v2: corrections in sec. 6, minor addition in sec. 3.3
arxiv created 2008/09/05 路 openalex publication_date 2008/11/07 路 arxiv updated 2009/12/01 路 openalex created_date 2019/06/27 路 openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
We study the subleading-color (nonplanar) contributions to the four-gluon scattering amplitudes in N=4 supersymmetric SU(N) Yang-Mills theory. Using the formalisms of Catani and of Sterman and Tejeda-Yeomans, we develop explicit expressions for the infrared-divergent contributions of all the subleading-color L-loop amplitudes up to three loops, and make some conjectures for the IR behavior for arbitrary L. We also derive several intriguing relations between the subleading-color one- and two-loop four-gluon amplitudes and the four-graviton amplitudes of N=8 supergravity. The exact one- and two-loop N=8 supergravity amplitudes can be expressed in terms of the one- and two-loop N-independent N=4 SYM amplitudes respectively, but the natural generalization to higher loops fails, despite having a simple interpretation in terms of the 't Hooft picture. We also find that, at least through two loops, the subleading-color amplitudes of N=4 SYM theory have uniform transcendentality (as do the leading-color amplitudes). Moreover, the N=4 SYM Catani operators, which express the IR-divergent contributions of loop amplitudes in terms of lower-loop amplitudes, are also shown to have uniform transcendentality, and to be the maximum transcendentality piece of the QCD Catani operators.