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Published August 7, 2015 | Submitted + Published
Journal Article Open

Positive Amplitudes In The Amplituhedron

Abstract

The all-loop integrand for scattering amplitudes in planar N = 4 SYM is determined by an "amplitude form" with logarithmic singularities on the boundary of the amplituhedron. In this note we provide strong evidence for a new striking property of the superamplitude, which we conjecture to be true to all loop orders: the amplitude form is positive when evaluated inside the amplituhedron. The statement is sensibly formulated thanks to the natural "bosonization" of the superamplitude associated with the amplituhedron geometry. However this positivity is not manifest in any of the current approaches to scattering amplitudes, and in particular not in the cellulations of the amplituhedron related to on-shell diagrams and the positive grassmannian. The surprising positivity of the form suggests the existence of a "dual amplituhedron" formulation where this feature would be made obvious. We also suggest that the positivity is associated with an extended picture of amplituhedron geometry, with the amplituhedron sitting inside a co-dimension one surface separating "legal" and "illegal" local singularities of the amplitude. We illustrate this in several simple examples, obtaining new expressions for amplitudes not associated with any triangulations, but following in a more invariant manner from a global view of the positive geometry.

Additional Information

© 2015 The Authors. 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: February 5, 2015. Accepted: July 13, 2015. Published: August 7, 2015. We thank Jake Bourjaily and Thomas Lam for stimulating discussions. We also thank Simon Caron-Huot for discussions, and for suggesting and checking the positivity of the integrated 6-point ratio function at one loop. N. A.-H. is supported by the Department of Energy under grant number DE-FG02-91ER40654. 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_3A10.1007_2FJHEP08_282015_29030.pdf

Submitted - 1412.8478v1.pdf

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