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Published June 17, 2015 | Published + Submitted
Journal Article Open

Simple Recursion Relations for General Field Theories

Abstract

On-shell methods offer an alternative definition of quantum field theory at tree-level, replacing Feynman diagrams with recursion relations and interaction vertices with a handful of seed scattering amplitudes. In this paper we determine the simplest recursion relations needed to construct a general four-dimensional quantum field theory of massless particles. For this purpose we define a covering space of recursion relations which naturally generalizes all existing constructions, including those of BCFW and Risager. The validity of each recursion relation hinges on the large momentum behavior of an n-point scattering amplitude under an m-line momentum shift, which we determine solely from dimensional analysis, Lorentz invariance, and locality. We show that all amplitudes in a renormalizable theory are 5-line constructible. Amplitudes are 3-line constructible if an external particle carries spin or if the scalars in the theory carry equal charge under a global or gauge symmetry. Remarkably, this implies the 3-line constructibility of all gauge theories with fermions and complex scalars in arbitrary representations, all supersymmetric theories, and the standard model. Moreover, all amplitudes in non-renormalizable theories without derivative interactions are constructible; with derivative interactions, a subset of amplitudes is constructible. We illustrate our results with examples from both renormalizable and non-renormalizable theories. Our study demonstrates both the power and limitations of recursion relations as a self-contained formulation of quantum field theory.

Additional Information

© 2015 The Authors. Published for SISSA by Springer. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY 4.0), which permits any use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited. Article funded by SCOAP3. Received: March 17, 2015; Accepted: May 11, 2015; Published: June 17, 2015. This research is funded by Walter Burke Institute for Theoretical Physics. C.C. and C.- H.S. are supported by a DOE Early Career Award under Grant No. DE-SC0010255. C.C. is also supported by a Sloan Research Fellowship. J.T. is supported in part by the David and Ellen Lee Postdoctoral Scholarship and by the Department of Energy under grant number DE-SC0011632.

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Published - art_10.1007_JHEP06_2015_118.pdf

Submitted - 1502.05057v1.pdf

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