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 Scattering Amplitudes in Gauge Theory and Gravity

Providing a comprehensive, pedagogical introduction to scattering amplitudes in gauge

theory and gravity, this book is ideal for graduate students and researchers. It offers a
smooth transition from basic knowledge of quantum field theory to the frontier of modern
research.
Building on basic quantum field theory, the book starts with an introduction to the spinor
helicity formalism in the context of Feynman rules for tree-level amplitudes. The material
covered includes on-shell recursion relations, superamplitudes, symmetries of N = 4 super
Yang–Mills theory, twistors and momentum twistors, Grassmannians, and polytopes. The
presentation also covers amplitudes in perturbative supergravity, 3d Chern–Simons matter
theories, and color-kinematics duality and its connection to “gravity = (gauge theory)2 .”
Basic knowledge of Feynman rules in scalar field theory and quantum electrodynamics
is assumed, but all other tools are introduced as needed. Worked examples demonstrate the
techniques discussed, and over 150 exercises help readers absorb and master the material.

Henriette Elvang is Associate Professor in the Department of Physics, University of Michigan.

She has worked on various aspects of high energy theoretical physics, including black holes
in string theory, scattering amplitudes, and the structure of gauge theories.
Yu-tin Huang is Assistant Professor at National Taiwan University. He is known for his work in
the study of scattering amplitudes beyond four dimensions, most notably in 3-dimensional
Chern–Simons matter theory.
“In recent years, a series of surprising insights and new methods have transformed the
understanding of gauge and gravitational scattering amplitudes. These advances are im-
portant both for practical calculations in particle physics, and for the fundamental structure
of relativistic quantum theory. Elvang and Huang have written the first comprehensive
text on this subject, and their clear and pedagogical approach will make these new ideas
accessible to a wide range of students.”
Joseph Polchinski, University of California, Santa Barbara
“This book provides a much needed text covering modern techniques that have given
radical new insights into the structure of quantum field theory. It gathers together a very
large body of recent literature and presents it in a coherent style. The book should appeal to
the wide body of researchers who wish to use quantum field theory as a tool for describing
physical phenomena or who are intending to gain insight by studying its mathematical
structure.”
Michael B. Green, University of Cambridge
Scattering Amplitudes in
Gauge Theory and Gravity

HENRIETTE ELVANG
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

YU-TIN HUANG
National Taiwan University
 University Printing House, Cambridge CB2 8BS, United Kingdom

Cambridge University Press is a part of the University of Cambridge.

It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of
education, learning, and research at the highest international levels of excellence.

www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781107069251

C H. Elvang and Y. Huang 2015
This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without the written
permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published 2015
Printed in the United States of America by Edwards Brothers Malloy
A catalog record for this publication is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication data
Elvang, Henriette, 1976– author.
Scattering amplitudes in gauge theory and gravity / Henriette Elvang, University of Michigan,
Ann Arbor, Yu-tin Huang, Institute for Advanced Study and National Taiwan University.
pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-107-06925-1 (hardback)
1. Scattering amplitude (Nuclear physics) 2. Gauge fields (Physics) – Mathematics.
I. Huang, Yu-tin, author. II. Title.
QC20.7.S3E48 2015
539.7 58 – dc23 2014032234
ISBN 978-1-107-06925-1 Hardback
Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of
URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication,
and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain,
accurate or appropriate.
For mom, dad, and Coco.
Yu-tin

Thank you, Mormor.

Henriette
 Contents

Preface page xi

1 Introduction 1

Part I Trees

2 Spinor helicity formalism 15

2.1 Dirac spinors 15
2.2 Spinor helicity notation 16
2.3 Examples from Yukawa theory 19
2.4 Massless vectors and examples from QED 25
2.5 Yang–Mills theory, QCD, and color-ordering 30
2.6 Little group scaling 37
2.7 MHV classification 41
2.8 Analytic properties of tree amplitudes 44

3 On-shell recursion relations at tree-level 50

3.1 Complex shifts and Cauchy’s theorem 50
3.2 BCFW recursion relations 53
3.3 When does it work? 62
3.4 MHV vertex expansion (CSW) 65

4 Supersymmetry 69
4.1 N = 1 supersymmetry: chiral model 69
4.2 Amplitudes and supersymmetry Ward identities 73
4.3 N = 1 supersymmetry: gauge theory 75
4.4 N = 4 SYM: on-shell superspace and superamplitudes 77
4.5 Super-BCFW and all tree-level amplitudes in N = 4 SYM 86
4.5.1 MHV superamplitude from super-BCFW 87
4.5.2 NMHV superamplitude and beyond 89

5 Symmetries of N = 4 SYM 95
5.1 Superconformal symmetry of N = 4 SYM 95
5.2 Twistors 99
5.3 Emergence of dual conformal symmetry 102
5.4 Momentum twistors 107
viii Contents

Part II Loops

6 Loop amplitudes and generalized unitarity 117

6.1 UV and IR divergences 119
6.2 Unitarity method 124
6.3 1-loop amplitudes from unitarity 126
6.4 1-loop amplitudes in planar N = 4 SYM 132
6.5 Higher-loop amplitudes in planar N = 4 SYM 135

7 BCFW recursion for loops 138

7.1 Loop-integrands 138
7.2 BCFW shift in momentum twistor space 141
7.3 Momentum twistor BCFW at tree-level 145
7.4 Momentum twistor BCFW for planar loop-integrands 149
7.5 Example: 4-point 1-loop amplitude from recursion 156
7.6 Higher loops 159

8 Leading Singularities and on-shell diagrams 161

8.1 1-loop Leading Singularities 162
8.2 2-loop Leading Singularities 172
8.3 On-shell diagrams 173

Part III Topics

9 Grassmannia 181
9.1 Yangian invariance and cyclic symmetry 182
9.2 The Grassmannian 185
9.3 Yangian invariants as residues in the Grassmannian 188
9.3.1 MHV amplitudes 188
9.3.2 6-point NMHV amplitudes 190
9.4 From on-shell diagrams to the Grassmannian 194

10 Polytopes 200
10.1 Volume of an n-simplex in CPn 202
10.2 NMHV tree superamplitude as the volume of a polytope 206
10.3 The boundary of simplices and polytopes 209
10.4 Geometric aftermath 213

11 Amplitudes in dimensions D = 4 216

11.1 Helicity formalism in D = 4 216
11.2 Scattering amplitudes in D = 6 219
11.3 Scattering amplitudes in D = 3 222
11.3.1 D = 3 kinematics 222
 Contents ix

11.3.2 3d SYM and Chern–Simons theory 224

11.3.3 Special kinematics and poles in amplitudes 225
11.3.4 D = 3 superconformal algebra 226
11.3.5 N = 8 superconformal theory: BLG 228
11.3.6 N = 6 superconformal theory: ABJM 230
11.3.7 BCFW recursion in 3d 233
11.3.8 ABJM and dual conformal symmetry 238
11.3.9 Loops and on-shell diagrams in ABJM 239
11.3.10 The orthogonal Grassmannian 245

12 Supergravity amplitudes 249

12.1 Perturbative gravity 249
12.2 Supergravity 254
12.3 Superamplitudes in N = 8 supergravity 256
12.4 Loop amplitudes in supergravity 259
12.5 N = 8 supergravity: loops and counterterms 261
12.6 Supergravity divergences for various N , L, and D 269

13 A colorful duality 272

13.1 The color-structure of Yang–Mills theory 273
13.2 Color-kinematics duality: BCJ, the tree-level story 276
13.3 Color-kinematics duality: BCJ, the loop-level story 283
13.3.1 1-loop 4-point N = 4 SYM 284
13.3.2 2-loop 4-point N = 4 SYM 285
13.3.3 3-loop 4-point N = 4 SYM 286
13.3.4 Summary 288
13.4 Implications for UV behavior of supergravity 288
13.5 Extensions 293

14 Further reading 294

Appendix Conventions for 4d spinor helicity formalism 297

References 299
Index 319
 Preface

This book grew out of a need to have a set of easily accessible notes that introduced the
basic techniques used in modern research on scattering amplitudes. In addition to the key
tools, such a review should collect some of the small results and intuitions the authors had
acquired from their work in the field and which had not previously been exposed in the
literature. As the authors quickly realized, such an introduction would bring the reader only
part of the way towards some of the most exciting topics in the field, so they decided to
add “a little extra” material. While doing so – and this took quite a while – the authors
remained in full and complete denial about writing a book. It was only at the end of
the process that they faced their worst fears: the review was becoming a book. You now
hold the result in your hands. Because the authors were not writing a book, they actually
thoroughly enjoyed the work. Their hope is that you will enjoy it too and that you will find it
useful.
It is a pleasure to thank our friends and collaborators who have worked with us and helped
us learn the subject of scattering amplitudes: Ratin Akhoury, Nima Arkani-Hamed, Zvi
Bern, Freddy Cachazo, John Joseph Carrasco, Simon Caron-Huot, Tim Cohen, Scott Davies,
Tristan Dennen, Lance Dixon, Dan Freedman, David Kosower, Johannes Henn, Harald Ita,
Henrik Johansson, Michael Kiermaier, Sangmin Lee, Arthur Lipstein, Thomas Lam, David
McGady, Timothy Olson, Cheng Peng, Jan Plefka, Radu Roiban, Mark Srednicki, Warren
Siegel, David Speyer, and Jaroslav Trnka. H.E. is grateful for the hospitality offered by
Stanford/SLAC during her visit in February/March 2013 and KITP/UCSB during January–
March 2014.
A few people have suffered early drafts of this book and we are indebted to them for their
helpful comments/suggestions/corrections: Cindy Keeler, Timothy Olson, Sam Roland,
David Speyer, Sri Suresh, Jonathan Walsh, and John Ware. Their careful readings caught
multiple typos and helped us improve the presentation. We would also like to thank Michael
Enciso, Karol Kampf, Joe Minahan, Stephen Naculich, and especially Stefan Theisen as
well as the Harvard amplitude reading group (communications from Marat Freytsis) for
detailed feedback on the manuscript.
Y.-t.H. would especially like to thank Warren Siegel, Peter van Nieuwenhuizen, and Zvi
Bern for their continuing support and guidance without which his career would have taken
a much different path. H.E. thanks Gary Horowitz, Dan Freedman, and Joe Polchinski for
the education, support, and friendship for which she is deeply grateful. She would also like
to thank her colleagues at the University of Michigan for their support for this project. Both
xii Preface

authors have benefited tremendously from amplitude discussions with Zvi Bern, Lance
Dixon, and Nima Arkani-Hamed.
The authors would also like to express their thanks to Cambridge University Press editor
Simon Capelin for his support, enthusiasm, and patience throughout the project.

Yu-tin Huang and Henriette Elvang

 Introduction 1

Scattering experiments are crucial for our understanding of the building blocks of nature.
The standard model of particle physics was developed from scattering experiments, in-
cluding the discovery of the weak force bosons W ± and Z 0 , quarks and gluons, and most
recently the Higgs boson.
The key observable measured in particle scattering experiments is the scattering cross-
section σ . It encodes the likelihood of a given process to take place as a function of the
energy and momentum of the particles involved. A more refined version of this quantity is
the differential cross-section dσ/d: it describes the dependence of the cross-section on
the angles of the scattered particles.
Interpretation of data from scattering experiments relies heavily on theoretical predic-
tions of scattering cross-sections. These are calculated in relativistic quantum field theory
(QFT), which is the mathematical language for describing elementary particles and their
interactions. Relativistic QFT combines special relativity with quantum physics and is
a hugely successful and experimentally well-tested framework for describing elementary
particles and the fundamental forces of nature. In quantum mechanics, the probability
distribution |ψ|2 = ψ ∗ ψ for a particle is given by the norm-squared of its complex-
valued wavefunction ψ. Analogously, in quantum field theory, the differential cross-
section is proportional to the norm-squared of the scattering amplitude A, dσ/d ∝ |A|2 .
The amplitudes A are well-defined physical observables: they are the subject of this
book.
Scattering amplitudes have physical relevance through their role in the scattering cross-
section. Moreover, it has been realized in recent years that amplitudes themselves have
a very interesting mathematical structure. Understanding this structure guides us towards
more efficient methods to calculate amplitudes. It also makes it exciting to study scattering
amplitudes in their own right and explore (and exploit) their connections to interesting
branches of mathematics, including combinatorics and geometry.
The purpose of this book is two-fold. First, we wish to provide a pedagogical introduction
to the efficient modern methods for calculating scattering amplitudes. Second, we survey
several interesting mathematical properties of amplitudes and recent research advances.
The hope is to bridge the gap between a standard graduate course in quantum field theory
and the modern approach to scattering amplitudes as well as current research. Thus we
assume readers to be familiar with the basics of quantum field theory and particle physics;
however, here in the first chapter we offer an introduction that may also be helpful for a
broader audience with an interest in the subject.
2 Introduction

What is a scattering amplitude?

Let us consider a few examples of scattering processes involving electrons e− , positrons
e+ , and photons γ :

Compton scattering e− + γ → e− + γ ,
Møller scattering e− + e− → e− + e− ,
(1.1)
Bhabha scattering e− + e+ → e− + e+ ,
e− e+ annihilation e− + e+ → γ + γ .

These processes are described in the quantum field theory that couples Maxwell’s elec-
tromagnetism to electrons and positrons, namely quantum electrodynamics (QED). Each
process is characterized by the types of particles involved in the initial and final states
as well as the relativistic momentum p and energy E of each particle. This input is the
external data for an amplitude: a scattering amplitude An involving a total of n initial
and final state particles takes the list {E i , pi ; typei }, i = 1, 2, . . . , n, of external data and
returns a complex number:

   
n-particle amplitude An : E i , pi ; typei → An E i , pi ; typei ∈ C. (1.2)

“Particle type” involves more than saying which particles scatter: it also includes a speci-
fication of the appropriate quantum numbers of the initial and final states, for example the
polarization of a photon or the spin-state of a fermion.
In special relativity, the energy E and momentum p of a physical particle must satisfy
the relationship E 2 = | p|2 c2 + m 2 c4 with m the rest mass of the particle. This is simply
the statement that E 2 − | p|2 c2 is a Lorentz-invariant quantity in Minkowski space. Thus,
one of the constraints on the external data for an n-particle amplitude is that the relativistic
on-shell condition,

E i2 − | pi |2 c2 = m i2 c4 , (1.3)

holds for all particles i = 1, . . . , n. The initial and final state electrons and positrons in the
QED processes (1.1) must satisfy the on-shell condition (1.3) with m i equal to the electron
mass, m e = 511 keV/c2 , while m i is zero for the photon since it is massless.
It is convenient to work in “natural units” where the speed of light c and Planck’s con-
stant h̄ = h/2π are set to unity: c = 1 = h̄. Proper units can always be restored by dimen-
sional analysis. We combine the energy and momentum into a 4-momentum piμ = (E i , pi ),
with μ = 0, 1, 2, 3, and write pi2 = −E i2 + | pi |2 such that the on-shell condition (1.3)
becomes

pi2 = −m i2 . (1.4)
 1 Introduction 3

μ
Conservation of relativistic energy and momentum requires the sum of initial momenta pin
μ
to equal the sum of final state momenta pout . It is convenient to flip the signs of all incoming
momenta so that the conservation of 4-momentum simply reads


n
piμ = 0 . (1.5)
i=1

Thus, to summarize, the external data for the amplitude involve a specification of 4-
μ
momentum and particle type for each external particle, { pi , typei }, subject to the on-shell
constraints pi2 = −m i2 and momentum conservation (1.5). We often use the phrase on-shell
amplitude to emphasize that the external data satisfy the kinematic constraints (1.4) and
(1.5) and include the appropriate polarization vectors or fermion spin wavefunctions.

Feynman diagrams
Scattering amplitudes are typically calculated as a perturbation series in the expansion of
a small dimensionless parameter that encodes the coupling of interactions between the
particles. For QED processes, this dimensionless coupling is the fine structure constant1
α ≈ 1/137. In the late 1940s, Feynman introduced a diagrammatic way to organize the
perturbative calculation of the scattering amplitudes. It expresses the n-particle scattering
amplitude An as a sum of all possible Feynman diagrams with n external legs:


An = (Feynman diagrams) = + + + · · · (1.6)

tree-level 1-loop 2-loop

The sum of diagrams is organized by the number of closed loops. For a given number
of particles n, the loop-diagrams are suppressed by powers of the coupling, e.g. in QED
an L-loop diagram is order α 2L compared with the tree-level. Hence the loop-expansion
is a diagrammatic representation of the perturbation expansion. The leading contribution
comes from the tree-diagrams; their sum is called the tree-level amplitude, Atree
n . The next
1-loop
order is 1-loop; the sum of the 1-loop diagrams is the 1-loop amplitude An , etc. The
full amplitude is then

An = Atree
n + An
1-loop
+ A2-loop
n + ··· (1.7)

It is rare that the loop-expansion is convergent; typically, the number of diagrams grows so
quickly at higher-loop order that it overcomes the suppression from the higher powers in the
small coupling. Amplitudes can be Borel summable, but this is not a subject we treat here.
Instead, we pursue an understanding of the contributions to the amplitude order-by-order
in perturbation theory.

1 In SI units, the fine structure constant is α = e2 /(4π 0h̄c), where 0 is the vacuum permittivity.
4 Introduction

The quantum field theories we are concerned with in this book are defined by Lagrangians
that encode the particles and how they interact. The Lagrangian for QED determines a
simple basic 3-particle interaction between electrons/positrons and the photon:

. (1.8)

From this, one can build diagrams such as

, , and . (1.9)

Reading the diagrams left to right, the first diagram describes the absorption and subsequent
emission of a photon (wavy line) by an electron (solid line), and as such it contributes at the
leading order in perturbation theory to the Compton scattering process e− + γ → e− + γ .
The second and third diagrams in (1.9) are the two tree-level diagrams that give the leading-
order contribution to the Bhabha scattering process e− + e+ → e− + e+ . The first of those
two diagrams encodes the annihilation of an electron and a positron to a photon and the
subsequent e+ e− pair-creation. The second diagram is the exchange of a photon in the
scattering of an electron and a positron.
A Feynman diagram is translated to a mathematical expression via Feynman rules. These
rules are specific to the particle types and the theory that describes their interactions. A
Feynman graph has the following essential parts:

• External lines: the Feynman diagram has an external line for each initial and final state
particle. The rule for the external line depends on the particle type. For spin-1 particles,
such as photons and gluons, the external line rule encodes the polarizations. For fermions,
it contains information about the spin state.
• Momentum labels: every line in the Feynman diagram is associated with a momentum. For
the external lines, the momentum is fixed by the external data. Momentum conservation
is enforced at any vertex. For a tree-graph, this fully determines the momenta on all
internal lines. For an L-loop graph, L momenta are undetermined and the Feynman rules
state that one must integrate over all possible values of these L momenta.
• Vertices: the vertices describe the interactions among the particles in the theory. Vertices
can in principle have any number of lines going in or out, but in many theories there
are just cubic and/or quartic vertices. The Feynman rules translate each vertex into a
mathematical rule; in the simplest case, this is just multiplication by a constant, but more
generally the vertex rule can involve the momenta associated with the lines going in or
out of the vertex.
• Internal lines: the Feynman rules translate every internal line into a “propagator” that
depends on the momentum associated with the internal line. (A propagator is the Fourier
transform of a Green’s function.) The mathematical expression depends on the type of
internal line, i.e. what kind of virtual particle is being exchanged.
 1 Introduction 5

One converts a Feynman diagram to a mathematical expression by tracing through the

diagram and picking up factors, in successive order of appearance, from the rules for
L-loop
external and internal lines and vertices. The Feynman rules then state that i An is
the sum of all possible L-loop diagrams with n external lines specified by the external
data.

Example. Consider the simplest case of a massless spin-0 scalar particle. The Feynman
rules for external scalar lines are simply a factor of 1 while an internal line with
momentum label P contributes −i/P 2 ; this is the massless scalar propagator. Let us
assume that our scalars only interact via cubic vertices for which the Feynman rule is
simply to multiply a factor of ig, where g is the coupling. A process involving four
scalars then has the tree-level contribution
p p
p2 p3 p p 2 3
2 3
4 (1, 2, 3, 4) =
Atree + +
p1 p p p
4 1 4 p p
1 4
 
1 1 1
= g2 + + . (1.10)
( p 1 + p 2 )2 ( p 1 + p 3 )2 ( p1 + p4 ) 2

Here ( p1 + p2 )2 = −( p10 + p20 )2 + | p1 + p2 |2 etc.

Note that the amplitude (1.10) is symmetric under exchange of identical bosonic external
states. This is a manifestation of Bose symmetry. Similarly, Fermi statistics requires that an
amplitude must be antisymmetric under exchange of any two identical external fermions.

Example. A 1-loop diagram in our simple scalar model takes the form

p2 p3
d4 1
= g4 2 2 2
. (1.11)
(2π )4 2 − p1 − p1 − p2 + p4
p1  p4

We have used momentum conservation p1 + p2 + p3 + p4 = 0 to simplify the fourth

propagator. The 1-loop 4-scalar amplitude in this model is obtained from the sum over
inequivalent box diagrams (1.11).

Loop-integrals can be divergent both in the large- and small-momentum regimes. Such
“ultraviolet” and “infrared divergences” are well-understood and typically treated using a
scheme such as dimensional regularization in which one replaces the measure d 4 in the
loop-integral by d D with D = 4 − 2. The divergences can then be cleanly extracted in the
expansion of small . The treatment of ultraviolet divergences is called “renormalization”;
it is a well-established method and the resulting predictions for scattering processes have
been tested to high precision in particle physics experiments.
6 Introduction

Example in QED
As an example of a tree-level process in QED, consider the annihilation of an electron–
positron pair to two photons:
γ

θ
e− + e+ → γ + γ e– e +. (1.12)

γ
The leading-order contribution to the amplitude is a sum of two tree-level Feynman diagrams
constructed from the basic QED vertex (1.8). It is

i Atree
4 e− + e+ → γ + γ = + . (1.13)

The two diagrams (1.13) are translated via the QED Feynman rules to Lorentz-invariant
contractions of 4-momentum vectors, photon polarizations, and fermion wavefunctions. In
the standard formulation, the expression for the amplitude is not particularly illuminating.
However, squaring it and subjecting it to a significant dose of index massage therapy, one
finds that the scattering cross-section takes a rather simple form. In the high-energy limit,
where the center of mass energy dominates the electron/positron rest mass, E CM m e c2 ,
the result for the differential cross-section is

2 1 1 + cos θ
2
dσ 1 2 E CM m e c2
= 2
A 4 −− −−− −→ α 2 1 − cos2 θ
+ O(α 4 ) . (1.14)
d 64π 2 E CM E CM
The sum indicates a spin-sum average. The cross-section (1.14) depends on the center of
mass energy E CM , the scattering angle θ indicated in (1.12), and the fine structure constant
α. (In natural units, α = e2 /4π .) The result (1.14) serves to illustrate the salient properties
of the differential cross-section: the dependence on particle energies and scattering angles
as well as powers of a small fundamental dimensionless coupling constant α. In particular,
the expression in (1.14) is the leading-order contribution to the scattering process, and
higher orders, starting at 1-loop level, are indicated by O(α 4 ).
Since the focus in this book is on scattering amplitudes, and not the cross-sections,
it is worthwhile to present an expression for the amplitude of the annihilation process
e− + e+ → γ + γ . It turns out to be particularly simple in the high-energy regime E CM
m e c2 , where the masses can be neglected and the momentum vectors of the incoming
electron and positron can be chosen to be light-like (i.e. null, pi2 = 0). In that case, the sum
of the two diagrams (1.13) reduces to a single term that can be written compactly as
242
Atree e− + e+ → γ + γ = 2e2 . (1.15)
4
1323
Here, the angle brackets i j are closely related to the particle 4-momenta via |i j|2 ∼
μ
2 pi . p j , where the Lorentz-invariant dot-product is pi . p j ≡ pi p jμ = − pi0 p 0j + pi . p j . The
 1 Introduction 7

4-momenta p1 and p2 are associated with the incoming electron and positron while p3 and
p4 are the 4-momenta of the photons. The angle bracket notation i j is part of the spinor
helicity formalism which is a powerful technical tool for describing scattering of massless
particles in four spacetime dimensions. We will introduce the spinor helicity formalism in
Chapter 2 and derive the expression (1.15) in full detail from the Feynman rules of QED.
You may be surprised to note that the expression (1.15) is not symmetric in the momenta
of the two photons. This is because the representation (1.15) selects distinct polarizations
for the photons.
Using momentum conservation and the on-shell condition pi2 = 0, one can show that
the norm-squared of the expression (1.15) is proportional to ( p1 . p3 )/( p1 . p4 ). The sum in
the cross-section (1.14) indicates a sum of the polarizations of the final state photons and
an average over the spins of the initial state electron and positron. This procedure yields a
second term with p3 ↔ p4 . Hence, what goes into the formula (1.14) is

  
p1 . p3 p1 . p4
e− + e+ → γ + γ
2
Atree = 2e4 + . (1.16)
4
p1 . p4 p1 . p3
μ μ
An explicit representation of the 4-momenta is p1 = (E, 0, 0, E) and p2 = (E, 0, 0, −E)
μ μ
for the initial states and p3 = (E, 0, E sin θ, E cos θ ) and p4 = (E, 0, −E sin θ, −E cos θ )
for the final state photons. Momentum conservation is simply p1 + p2 = p3 + p4 . Using
2
that the center of mass energy is E CM = −( p1 + p2 )2 = 4E 2 , one finds that the high-energy
result for the differential cross-section in (1.14) follows from (1.16).
It is typical that amplitudes involving only massless particles are remarkably simpler
than those with massive particles. This can be regarded as a high-energy regime, as in our
example above. Because of the simplicity, yet remarkably rich mathematical structure, the
focus of many developments in the field has been on scattering amplitudes of massless
particles.

The S-matrix
We have introduced the scattering amplitude as a function that takes as its input the
μ
constrained external data { pi , typei } and produces a complex number that is traditionally
calculated in terms of Feynman diagrams. The scattering process can also be considered
as an operation that maps an initial state |i to a final state | f , each being a collection of
single-particle states characterized by momenta and particle types. The scattering matrix S,
also called the S-matrix, is the unitary operator that “maps” the initial states to final states.
In other words, the probability of an initial state |i changing into a final state | f  is given
by | f |S|i|2 . Separating out the trivial part of the scattering process where no scattering
occurs, we write

S = 1 + iT . (1.17)

Then the amplitude is simply A =  f |T |i and this is the quantity that is calculated by
Feynman diagrams. Solving the S-matrix for a given theory means having a way to generate
all scattering amplitudes at any order in perturbation theory.
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