Paolo Benincasa

Taming tree amplitudes in general relativity

We give a proof of BCFW recursion relations for all tree-level amplitudes of gravitons in General Relativity. The proof follows the same basic steps as in the BCFW construction and it is an extension of the one given for next-to-MHV amplitudes by one of the authors and P. Svrcek in hep-th/0502160. The main obstacle to overcome is to prove that deformed graviton amplitudes vanish as the complex variable parameterizing the deformation is taken to infinity. This step is done by first proving an auxiliary recursion relation where the vanishing at infinity follows directly from a Feynman diagram analysis. The auxiliary recursion relation gives rise to a representation of gravity amplitudes where the vanishing under the BCFW deformation can be directly proven. Since all our steps are based only on Feynman diagrams, our proof completely establishes the validity of BCFW recursion relations. This means that many results in the literature that were derived assuming their validity become true statements.

Hydrodynamics of Sakai–Sugimoto model in the quenched approximation

Abstract We study transport properties of the finite temperature Sakai–Sugimoto model. The model represents a holographic dual to ( 4 + 1 ) -dimensional supersymmetric SU ( N c ) gauge theory compactified on a circle with anti-periodic boundary conditions for fermions, coupled to N f left-handed quarks and N f right-handed quarks localized at different points on the compact circle. We analytically compute the speed of sound and the sound wave attenuation in the quenched approximation. Since confinement/deconfinement (and the chiral symmetry restoration) phase transitions are first order in this model, we do not see any signature of these phase transitions in the transport properties.

Worldline approach to vector and antisymmetric tensor fields II

The N = 2 spinning particle action describes the propagation of antisymmetric tensor fields, including vector fields as a special case. In this paper we study the path integral quantization on a one-dimensional torus of the N = 2 spinning particle coupled to spacetime gravity. The action has a local N = 2 worldline supersymmetry with a gauged U(1) symmetry that includes a Chern-Simons coupling. Its quantization on the torus produces the one-loop effective action for a single antisymmetric tensor. We use this worldline representation to calculate the first few Seeley-DeWitt coefficients for antisymmetric tensor fields of arbitrary rank in arbitrary dimensions. As side results we obtain the correct trace anomaly of a spin 1 particle in four dimensions as well as exact duality relations between differential form gauge fields. This approach yields a drastic simplification over standard heat-kernel methods. It contains on top of the usual proper time a new modular parameter implementing the reduction to a single tensor field. Worldline methods are generically simpler and more efficient in perturbative computations than standard QFT Feynman rules. This is particularly evident when the coupling to gravity is considered.