Scalar-Scaffolded Gluons and the Combinatorial Origins of Yang-Mills Theory

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel scalar scaffolding approach to formulate Yang-Mills scattering amplitudes across dimensions and loop orders, revealing deep combinatorial structures and connections to string theory that simplify calculations and uncover foundational insights.

Contribution

It presents a new scalar scaffolding method linking scalar and gluon amplitudes, demonstrating their equivalence up to kinematic shifts, and provides a combinatorial framework for understanding Yang-Mills theory.

Findings

Scalar scaffolding reproduces gluon amplitudes from scalar theories.

Amplitudes satisfy gauge invariance and factorization properties.

Matching loop-level singularities confirms the validity of the approach.

Abstract

We present a new formulation for Yang-Mills scattering amplitudes in any number of dimensions and at any loop order, based on the same combinatorial and binary-geometric ideas in kinematic space recently used to give an all-order description of Tr $\phi^3$ theory. We propose that in a precise sense the amplitudes for a suitably "stringy" form of these two theories are identical, up to a simple shift of kinematic variables. This connection is made possible by describing the amplitudes for $n$ gluons via a "scalar scaffolding", arising from the scattering of $2n$ colored scalars coming in $n$ distinct pairs of flavors fusing to produce the gluons. Fundamental properties of the "$u$-variables", describing the "binary geometry" for surfaces appearing in the topological expansion, magically guarantee that the kinematically shifted Tr $\phi^3$ amplitudes satisfy the physical properties needed to be interpreted as scaffolded gluons. These include multilinearity, gauge invariance, and factorization on tree- and loop- level gluon cuts. Our "stringy" scaffolded gluon amplitudes coincide with amplitudes in the bosonic string for extra-dimensional gluon polarizations at tree-level, but differ (and are simpler) at loop-level. We provide many checks on our proposal, including matching non-trivial leading singularities through two loops. The simple counting problem underlying the $u$ variables autonomously "knows" about everything needed to convert colored scalar to gluon amplitudes, exposing a striking "discovery" of Yang-Mills amplitudes from elementary combinatorial ideas in kinematic space.