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Yang-Mills Amplitudes from Twistor String Theory

Special Events

Speaker: Marcus Spradlin, University of California Santa Barbara
Location: 693 Kerr
Start time: Tue, Feb 1 2005, 4:10PM

The number of Feynman diagrams which contribute (even at the classical level) to an n-particle scattering amplitude in Yang-Mills theory grows faster than factorially with n. The construction of more efficient computational methods which also expose otherwise hidden mathematical richness has benefited substantially from string theory input. In my talk I will show how to calculate scattering amplitudes from the topological B-model on the Calabi-Yau supermanifold P^{3|4} as an integral over the moduli space of degree d curves. This calculation provides the best evidence in support of Witten's suggestion that there is some kind of twistor string underlying Yang-Mills amplitudes.