Cluster adjacency beyond MHV

Abstract

Abstract We explore further the notion of cluster adjacency, focussing on non-MHV amplitudes. We extend the notion of adjacency to the BCFW decomposition of tree-level amplitudes. Adjacency controls the appearance of poles, both physical and spurious, in individual BCFW terms. We then discuss how this notion of adjacency is connected to the adjacency already observed at the level of symbols of scattering amplitudes which controls the appearance of branch cut singularities. Poles and symbols become intertwined by cluster adjacency and we discuss the relation of this property to the Q ¯ $$ \overline{Q} $$ -equation which imposes constraints on the derivatives of the transcendental functions appearing in loop amplitudes.

Keywords

• Scattering Amplitudes
• Supersymmetric Gauge Theory
• Wilson, ’t Hooft and Polyakov loops