Perturbation Theory at Eight Loops: Novel Structures and the Breakdown of Manifest Conformality in N=4 Supersymmetric Yang-Mills Theory

Bourjaily, Jacob L.; Heslop, Paul; Tran, Vuong-Viet

Abstract

We use the soft-collinear bootstrap to construct the 8-loop integrand for the 4-point amplitude and 4-stress-tensor correlation function in planar maximally supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory. Both have a unique representation in terms of planar, conformal integrands grouped according to a hidden symmetry discovered for correlation functions. The answer we find exposes a fundamental tension between manifest locality and planarity with manifest conformality not seen at lower loops. For the first time, the integrand must include terms that are finite even on-shell and terms that are divergent even off-shell (so-called pseudoconformal integrals). We describe these novelties and their consequences in this Letter, and we make the full correlator and amplitude available as part of the Supplemental Material.

Citation

Bourjaily, J. L., Heslop, P., & Tran, V. (2016). Perturbation Theory at Eight Loops: Novel Structures and the Breakdown of Manifest Conformality in N=4 Supersymmetric Yang-Mills Theory. Physical Review Letters, 116(19), Article 191602. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.116.191602

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jan 20, 2016
• Online Publication Date: May 11, 2016
• Publication Date: May 11, 2016
• Deposit Date: Feb 2, 2016
• Publicly Available Date: Jul 28, 2016
• Journal: Physical Review Letters
• Print ISSN: 0031-9007
• Electronic ISSN: 1079-7114
• Publisher: American Physical Society
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 116
• Issue: 19
• Article Number: 191602
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.116.191602
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1390357
• Related Public URLs: http://arxiv.org/abs/arXiv:1512.07912