Mellin Transform of MHV 4 Point

Sabrina Gonzalez Pasterski

(Dated: January 12, 2017)
This note computes the highest-weight transform of the color-ordered four point tree level MHV
amplitude.

I. CONVENTIONS the contribution of the first term in the y expansion to

±
,m!0 would be
The main result of [1] was an expression for the scatter- Z 1 Z h i
± µ
ing amplitude of SL(2, C) highest-weight states in terms ,m (X ; w, w̄) / dyy 1 dzdz̄ 2 (z w) exp ±i! q µ (z, z̄) Xµ + ...
0
✓ ◆ Z 1 h i
of an integral transform acting on the S-matrix elements = 2
d!! 1 exp ±i! q µ (w, w̄) Xµ + ...
in the standard plane wave basis: m 0
(I.5)
n Z 1
Y dyi
Z where we have used the m ! 0 limit to reduce p to a
à 1 ,··· ,
(wi , w̄i ) ⌘ dzi dz̄i G (yi , zi , z̄i ; wi , w̄i ) A(mj p̂µj ) . massless four momentum and also to motivate doing the
n
i=1 0 yi3 i

integral of the expansion in small y, since here we are

considering it as an expansion in small m with ! fixed.
Here G is a bulk-to boundary propagator of weight ,
The second term will produce a similar contribution with
with (y, z, z̄) Poincaré coordinates on the H3 parameter-
a power of m 2 . Here we will assume Re[ ] is slightly
izing the on-shell momentum space hyperboloid of the
greater than one to motivate picking the first term in
asymptotic states
the y ! 0 expansion, after an overall mass-dependent
✓ ◆ rescaling, as the limit of the massive transform for m = 0
1 + y 2 + |z|2 Re(z) Im(z) 1 y 2 |z|2
p̂µ (y, z, z̄) =
2y
,
y
,
y
,
2y
, (I.1) states.
The profiles resulting from convolving with either
and (w, w̄) the conformal S 2 coordinates of a reference term in (I.4) are highest-weight solutions. The first term
null direction has the advantage of being local on the S 2 ; ie the refer-
ence direction with respect to which the state is highest
q µ = 1 + |w|2 , w + w̄, i(w w̄), 1 |w|2 . (I.2) weight is the same as the direction of the null momen-
tum of the particle. Meanwhile the remaining integral of
In these coordinates G then takes the form: the transform in the radial direction on the momentum
✓ ◆ space hyperboloid is converted in this limit to a Mellin
y transform of the energy. Once we have motivated the
G (y, z, z̄; w, w̄) = . (I.3)
y 2 + |z w|2 Mellin transformed state in this manner, we will take the
limit where the real part of the contour returns to a = 1,
which will be convenient for formal manipulations to ex-
I.1. Massless Limit press the distributional nature of the dependence on the
imaginary parts of the weights.
For example acting directly on the plane wave creation
In terms of plane waves, the highest weight states being
and annhiliation operators to define:
scattered in à can be written as:
Z 1
Z Z h i
d! ! i a(!, q̂)
1
±
,m (X
µ
; w, w̄) =
dy
dzdz̄ G (y, z, z̄; w, w̄) exp ±im p̂µ (y, z, z̄) Xµ . a (q̂) ⌘ (I.6)
0 y3 0

In the y ! 0 limit G behaves as: gives an inner product

y h0|a 0 (q̂ 0 )a† (q̂)|0i = 2(2⇡)4 ( 0

) (2)
(q̂ q̂ 0 ) (I.7)
2 2
G (y, z, z̄; w, w̄) ⇠ Cy (z w) + + ... (I.4)
|z w|2 after using the change of variables u = ln ! to write
where the constant C can be computed by matching the R1 d! 1
R1 d! ib ln !
area integral on the S 2 as shown in the appendix of [2]. ! 1+ib
= 2⇡ ! e
0 0
As in [2] and the appendix of [1] the weight will take R1 (I.8)
ibu
values on a contour = a + i . Note that while the = due
1
real power of the mass scaling is the same for both terms = 2⇡ (b)
when a = 1, the imaginary parts of the exponent di↵er
(ie 2 = ¯ ). which relies on the fact that ! is real and positive and in
The next step is to do the momentum space convolu- particular on the real part of the power of ! appearing
m
tion. We take ! ⌘ 2y fixed in the y ! 0 limit. Then in the integrand.
 2

Note that (I.6) matches the highest weight transform celestial S 2 , as consistent from the 4D scattering perspec-
for Re[ ] = 1. The Mellin transformed states are or- tive, with little group scaling.
thogonal for di↵erent weights and directions. Through Before specializing to the 4 point case, we point out
this transform we have exchanged energies for weights one feature present in all MHV tree level amplitudes. If
while the direction on the sphere is the same as the di- we start to compute the transformed amplitude
rection of the four momenta [4] (see footnote 9 of [5] for
n Z
Y 1 X
an extended-BMS motivation for scattering Rindler en- hiji4
à = d!k !ki k 4
( pk ) (II.4)
ergy eigenstates). 0 h12ih23i...hn1i
k=1 k

by first
P factoring out the overall scale of the energies (ie
II. COMPUTATION fix !k = s) we are left with
Z 1 P X
Note that the Mellin transformed states are those ap-
à / dssi k 1
= 2⇡ ( k) (II.5)
pearing in [2] and in [3]. With the perspective of [1] we 0
will be transforming the amplitude directly rather than
foliating Minkowski space (see section IV for a comment where the measure from the simplex integral contributes
on the connection between the foliation perspective and dssn 1 , the Parke-Taylor formula gives an overall energy
our transform point of view). Noticing (I.5) is equiv- scaling of s4 n , the four dimensional delta function P
gives
alent to a weighted integral over all energies for parti- s 4 , and the Mellin transform integrand gives si k
.
cle momenta parallel to a reference null four vector, we Combining these contributions we see from (I.8) that the
can define the massless analog of the transform in [1], transformed amplitude, for any number of scatterers n,
converting from plane wave to highest weight scattering has delta function support on the locus in weight space
amplitudes as: where the sum of the imaginary parts is zero.
We will now consider 2 ! 2 scattering in the crossed
n Z
Y 1 configuration with Parke-Taylor amplitude
à 1 ,··· , n
(wi , w̄i ) ⌘ d!k !ki k
A(!k qkµ ) . (II.1)
k=1 0 h12i3
A= (II.6)
where the particle momenta on the right hand side have h23ih34ih41i
the form pµk = !k q µ (wk , w̄k ) for q as in (I.2). This am- the goal is to compute
plitude is a multiple Mellin transform of the plane wave
Z Y
one. Note the Mellin transforms are of the energies not 3
w12
à = d!k !11 i 1
!21 i 2
!3 1+i 3 !4 1+i 4

the Mandelstam invariants. w23 w34 w14

k (II.7)
For the scalar case, such a convolution gave highest ⇥ (4)
(!1 q1 + !2 q2 ! 3 q3 !4 q4 )
weight states of weight 1+i . We will see that the energy
dependence of the stripped amplitude naturally shifts the Here we use conjugate i weights for in versus outgoing
real parts of the weights of the fields appearing in the states so the support will be on P 1+ 2 3 4 = 0. We
highest weight amplitude in a helicity-dependent manner make the choice !k = s k where k = 2, as convenient
as is also suggested by footnote 9 of [5]. for 2 ! 2 scattering.
We will now look at the structure for the tree level Shifting coordinates so that wi = zi z2 , again for con-
color-ordered n-point MHV amplitude. The Parke- venience, and writing the argument of the delta function
Taylor formula for the delta-function stripped tree level in terms of the q(w, w̄) of (I.2) one finds as an interme-
amplitude gives: diate result the following expression
3
hiji4 Ã = (2⇡) ( 1 + 2 4)
z12
A= (II.2) Z 1 Z 1
3
z23 z34 z14
h12ih23i...hn1i
1 i 1 i 1+i 1+i
⇥ d 1 d 3 1
1
(1 1)
2
3
3
(1 3)
4

0 0
for all + except for i, j helicity in the all-out conven- ⇥ (2)
( 1 z12 3 z34 + z24 )
tion. In our convention for coordinates on the celestial ⇥ ⇤
⇥ ( 1 |z12 |2 + 3 |z24 |2 |z23 |2 |z24 |2 )
sphere:
(II.8)
p wherePwe have used the p0tot + p3tot constraint combined
hiji = 2 !i !j (wi wj ) (II.3)
with k = 2 to see that 1 + 2 = 3 + 4 = 1. The
thus the energy dependence factors out of the delta- p1tot , p2tot delta function has support on the solution:
function stripped amplitude and plays the role of shift-
z23 z̄24 z̄23 z24
ing the weight of the highest-weight states that appear 1 = (II.9)
in the Mellin transform, in accord with the dimension of z34 z̄12 z̄34 z12
the field. Meanwhile the holomorphic vs antiholomorphic
spinors that would appear in the anti-MHV amplitudes z24 z̄12 z̄24 z12
give the spin dependence of CFT-like correlators on the 3 = (II.10)
z34 z̄12 z̄34 z12
 3

One must check that these are saturated within the range in terms of which
of integration for k , which places constraints on the po-
sitions. Alternatively, one could take the point of view Im[⌘]
det{q1 , q2 , q3 , q4 } = 8|z13 |2 |z24 |2 . (II.14)
that whatever functional form of the answer we get will |1 ⌘|2
then be evaluated at points such that these conditions are
met, which ultimately reduce to allowed kinematic con- While |z13 |2 |z24 |2 and |1 1⌘|2 can go to zero, this only oc-
figurations for 2 ! 2 massless scattering. The Jacobian curs at singular configurations of the zi . In the following
from this delta function gives a factor of 2(z12 z̄34i z̄12 z34 ) we will consider the amplitudes of interest to be those
where we will suppress a potential sign that comes from smeared near the support of the locus Im[⌘] = 0 ie the
evaluating the absolute value. single cross ratio in the 2D conformal theory is real.
At these values of k the argument of the remaining We now want to simplify
delta function can be written as
⇡ |1 ⌘|2 3
z12
⇥ ⇤ i det{q1 , q2 , q3 , q4 } Ã = (Im[⌘]) ( 1 + 2 3 4) ⇥ 2 2
1 |z12 |
2
+ 3 |z24 | 2
|z23 | 2
|z24 | =2
(II.11) 2 |z13 | |z24 | z23 z34 z14
4(z12 z̄34 z̄1 2z34 ) 1 i 1
⇥ 1 (1 1)
1 i 2 1+i 3
(1 3)
1+i 4
3

where the determinant is of a matrix with each row one (II.15)

of the reference null momenta of the form (I.2) for each into the form of a standard 4 point function with weight
scatter. The i(z12 z̄34 z̄12 z34 ) dependent Jacobian is thus dependent factors of zij and z̄ij times some function of ⌘
seen to cancel between the two delta functions leaving us which we see has support only for real ⌘. This restriction
at this point with an expression of the form: to real ⌘ will be used in this simplification as it gives us
relations like
3
z12
à = 2(2⇡) ( 1 + 2 3 4) z12 z̄24 z13 z̄34
z23 z34 z14 = (II.16)
⇥ 11 i 1 (1 1)
1 i 2 1+i 3
(1 3)
1+i 4 (II.12) z̄12 z24 z̄13 z34
3
⇥ (det{q1 , q2 , q3 , q4 })
from ⌘ = ⌘¯. After such simplifications we find
where 1 and 3 are evaluated at (II.9) and (II.10).
At this stage it is beneficial to reflect on the role the à = ( 1)1 i 2 +i 3 ⇡
⌘)]5/3 (Im[⌘])
2 [⌘(1
two remaining delta functions play. In order to have an Q4
h/3 hi hj h̄/3 h̄i h̄j
allowed 2 ! 2 scattering configuration in flat space the ⇥ ( 1 + 2 3 4) zij z̄ij
i<j
signed four momenta must sum to zero. This means that
the reference vectors must form the edges of a closed (II.17)
null polygon in R4 . Thus, these four vectors are not where the holomorphic and antiholomorphic weights are
linearly independent. The vanishing of the determinant given by:
appearing here is precisely that statement. In the Mellin
transform, we are performing a weighted integral over the h1 = 2i 1 h̄1 =1 i
2 1
moduli of possible lengths for four null vectors pointing h2 = 2i 2 h̄2 =1 i
2 2
i (II.18)
in assigned directions to form a closed polygon. Now be- h3 =1+ 2 3 h̄3 = 2i 3
i
cause of the dilation symmetry of the property of whether h4 =1+ 2 4 h̄4 = 2i 4
or not a polygon closes, once any such solution exists for
given ratio of edge lengths, any uniform rescaling of the as consistent with footnote 9 of [5], and h = h1 + h2 +
edges will also result in an allowed closed null polygon. h3 + h4 , h̄ = h̄1 + h̄2 + h̄3 + h̄4 .
This is the content of the first delta function where, by
the change of variables in (I.8) and the choice of contour
for the complex weights, we get a delta function for the III. CONCLUSIONS
signed sum of the imaginary parts of the weights from
the dilation mode integral as shown in (II.5) to appear In this note we have computed the highest-weight-
in any tree level MHV amplitude. transformed amplitude for the particular example of a
With these delta functions appearing in the trans- 4 point tree level color-ordered 2 ! 2 MHV scattering
formed amplitude, it is natural to formally consider scat- process.
tering smeared over the imaginary weights and positions Here, as in [1], the space of allowed kinematic config-
on the celestial sphere, in a manner such that the delta urations for on-shell 4D scattering plays a crucial role in
functions then restrict the overlap profiles to the kine- these small-n computations, where Lorentz invariance –
matically allowed configurations. as manifested by global SL(2, C) transformations of the
We will now write the second delta function in terms coordinates on the celestial sphere – dictate the CFT-
of conformal cross ratios. Using the conventions of Di correlator-like structure.
Francesco et al (5.27) for the variable naming we let The motivation for transforming amplitudes to a high-
z12 z34 est weight basis comes from recent work by Strominger
⌘= (II.13) et al demonstrating that the asymptotic symmetry group
z13 z24

of gravity in asymptotically flat spacetimes can be ex-
tended to include superrotations [5] whose Ward iden-
tities correspond to a Virasoro symmetry on the celes-
tial sphere. Recently a stress tensor for this e↵ective 2D
CFT in terms of the boundary metric at null infinity was
proposed [6]. The hope is that what amounts to ma-
nipulations of Lorentz invariance in this note and [1] will
become a much richer story once one couples to gravity.
It is interesting to note that the transformations which
lead to these highest weight amplitudes convolve plane
wave amplitudes at all energies. While at first it may
seem like a detriment, since the scattering amplitudes
computable from a low energy e↵ective theory would be
insufficient, there is a curious notion that if we were able
to one day work out a holographic description of scat-
tering in asymptotically flat spacetimes in terms of a 2D
CFT, the CFT description would then tell us some prop-
erties of the behavior of the amplitudes at high energies
we might otherwise be unable to probe.
IV. COMMENTS
The following are a few side comments related to what
has been described in this note. It is worthwhile to com-
pare the spacetime foliation and S-matrix transform ap-
proaches to highest weight scattering. Since the trans-
form depends on the amplitude at all energies, a crucial
part of it is the momentum conserving delta function. If
we write
Z in both terms, however if one takes this route they should
X P
4 4
(2⇡) ( pk ) = d4 xeix· pk (IV.1)
the Mellin transform will act on both the stripped part of
the amplitude and this factor, where in the simplest cases
– like MHV amplitudes – the e↵ect of the stripped am-
plitude is to shift the weight. Then since highest weight
states have the form
± µ 1 This note incorporates results on the massless trans-
,m=0 (X ; w, w̄) = . (IV.2)
( X µ qµ ⌥ i✏)
the foliation of Minkowski spacetime in, for instance, the
forward lightcone of the origin turns the integral over the
H3 length scale (ie x2 = `2 ) into something that fac-
tors out of what then looks like a convolution of bulk to
[1] S. Pasterski, S. H. Shao and A. Strominger, “Flat Space Am-
plitudes and Conformal Symmetry of the Celestial Sphere,”
arXiv:1701.00049 [hep-th].
[2] J. de Boer and S. N. Solodukhin, “A Holographic reduction
of Minkowski space-time,” Nucl. Phys. B 665, 545 (2003)
doi:10.1016/S0550-3213(03)00494-2 [hep-th/0303006].
[3] C. Cheung, A. de la Fuente and R. Sundrum, “4D Scatter-
ing Amplitudes and Asymptotic Symmetries from 2D CFT,”
4
boundary propagators on a position-space slice (ie d3 xH3
from the plane wave expansion of the momentum con-
serving delta function). This is just one trick for working
backwards from the momentum space amplitude to a po-
sition space expression. More conventionally, one would
start by just defining the highest weight scattering pro-
files in position space and compute the amplitude for
scattering between them directly.
It may be interesting down the road to consider the
e↵ect of the second term in (I.4), since it is curious how
for a contour at Re[ ] = 1 both terms appear with the
same real part for the power of mass. And while the first
term is convenient for localizing integrals on the S 2 the
smearing associated with second one will allow a CFT
2-point function overlap (like that shown for the massive
case in the Appendix to [1]) in addition to the contact
term in the Klein-Gordon norm. The contact term cor-
responds to the fact that a free massless particle will
enter and leave traveling in the same direction while the
second term would smear this profile so that these alter-
nate highest weight states overlap at separated points as
well, with the expected analytic behavior on the S 2 com-
ing from global conformal symmetry arguments. The
tradeo↵ is one between having simpler mode orthogonal-
ity relations and amplitude transform expressions in the
Mellin case, versus being able to avoiding trivial results
at low point amplitudes due to the kinematic restrictions
for massless scattering when there is no such smearing.
Leaving m small but nonzero would avoid the issue of
not being able to scale out the same power of the mass
be wary of the order of limits in taking m small to mo-
tivate picking out the small y behavior of G and then
integrating this behavior over y, using the small mass to
suppress the integrals of other terms in the y expansion.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
form from e↵orts with A. Strominger leading up to the
generalization to the massive transform in [1] but not
featured in that work. I am grateful to D. Ja↵eris for
useful conversations. This work was supported by the
NSF and by the Hertz Foundation through a Harold and
Ruth Newman Fellowship.
arXiv:1609.00732 [hep-th].
[4] S. Pasterski, “Asymptotic Symmetries and Electromagnetic
Memory,” arXiv:1505.00716 [hep-th].
[5] D. Kapec, V. Lysov, S. Pasterski and A. Strominger, ‘Semiclas-
sical Virasoro symmetry of the quantum gravity S-matrix,”
JHEP 1408, 058 (2014) doi:10.1007/JHEP08(2014)058
[arXiv:1406.3312 [hep-th]].
[6] D. Kapec, P. Mitra, A. M. Raclariu and A. Strominger, “A 2D
Stress Tensor for 4D Gravity,” arXiv:1609.00282 [hep-th].