Structure of Chern-Simons Scattering Amplitudes from Topological Equivalence Theorem and Double-Copy

TL;DR

This paper introduces a Topological Equivalence Theorem for 3d Chern-Simons theories, revealing energy cancellation mechanisms in scattering amplitudes and extending the double-copy approach to massive gravity.

Contribution

It formulates a new TET relating polarization states in 3d Chern-Simons theories and uncovers novel energy cancellation patterns in scattering amplitudes, extending double-copy methods to massive gravity.

Findings

Energy cancellations E^4 to E^{4-N} at tree level

Explicit demonstration of TET in four-point amplitudes

Large energy cancellations E^{12} to E^1 in TMG graviton amplitudes

Abstract

We study the mechanism of topological mass-generation for 3d Chern-Simons (CS) gauge theories, where the CS term can retain the gauge symmetry and make gauge boson topologically massive. Without CS term the 3d massless gauge boson has a single physical transverse polarization state, while adding the CS term converts it into a massive physical polarization state and conserves the total physical degrees of freedom. We newly formulate the mechanism of topological mass-generation at $S$-matrix level. For this, we propose and prove a new Topological Equivalence Theorem (TET) which connects the $N$-point scattering amplitude of the gauge boson's physical polarization states ($A^a_{\rm{P}}$) to that of the transverse polarization states ($A^a_{\rm{T}}$) under high energy expansion. We present a general 3d power counting method on the leading energy dependence of $N$-point scattering amplitudes in both topologically massive Yang-Mills (TMYM) and topologically massive gravity (TMG) theories. With these, we uncover a general energy cancellation mechanism for $N$-gauge boson scattering amplitudes which predicts the cancellation $E^4 \to E^{4-N}$ at tree level. Then, we compute the four-point amplitudes of $A^a_{\rm{P}}$'s and of $A^a_{\rm{T}}$'s, with which we explicitly demonstrate the TET and establish such energy cancellations. We further extend the double-copy approach and construct the four-point massive graviton amplitude of the TMG theory from the massive gauge boson amplitude of the TMYM theory. With these, we newly uncover striking large energy cancellations $E^{12}\to E^1$ in the four-graviton amplitude of the TMG, and establish its new correspondence to the leading energy cancellations $E^4 \to E^0$ in the four-gauge boson amplitude of the TMYM.