Journal Article

The light-ray OPE and conformal colliders

Simmons-Duffin, David, Zhiboedov, Alexander, Koloğlu, Murat, Kravchuk, Petr

2021

Overview

A bstract We derive a nonperturbative, convergent operator product expansion (OPE) for null-integrated operators on the same null plane in a CFT. The objects appearing in the expansion are light-ray operators, whose matrix elements can be computed by the generalized Lorentzian inversion formula. For example, a product of average null energy (ANEC) operators has an expansion in the light-ray operators that appear in the stress-tensor OPE. An important application is to collider event shapes. The light-ray OPE gives a nonperturbative expansion for event shapes in special functions that we call celestial blocks. As an example, we apply the celestial block expansion to energy-energy correlators in N = 4 Super Yang-Mills theory. Using known OPE data, we find perfect agreement with previous results both at weak and strong coupling, and make new predictions at weak coupling through 4 loops (NNNLO).

• Publisher: Springer Berlin Heidelberg,Springer Nature B.V,Springer Nature,SpringerOpen
• Subject: Classical and Quantum Gravitation / Conformal and W Symmetry / Conformal Field Theory / Correlators / Coupling / Elementary Particles / Energy / Field Theories in Higher Dimensions / High energy physics / Operators (mathematics) / Physics / Physics and Astronomy / PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS / Quantum Field Theories / Quantum Field Theory / Quantum Physics / Regular Article - Theoretical Physics / Relativity Theory / Spacetime / String Theory / Symmetry / Tensors / Yang-Mills theory