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A natural language for AdS/CFT correlators

Fitzpatrick, A. Liam; Kaplan, Jared; Penedones, Joao; Raju, Suvrat; van Rees, Balt C.

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Authors

A. Liam Fitzpatrick

Jared Kaplan

Joao Penedones

Suvrat Raju

Balt C. van Rees



Abstract

We provide dramatic evidence that ‘Mellin space’ is the natural home for correlation functions in CFTs with weakly coupled bulk duals. In Mellin space, CFT correlators have poles corresponding to an OPE decomposition into ‘left’ and ‘right’ sub-correlators, in direct analogy with the factorization channels of scattering amplitudes. In the regime where these correlators can be computed by tree level Witten diagrams in AdS, we derive an explicit formula for the residues of Mellin amplitudes at the corresponding factorization poles, and we use the conformal Casimir to show that these amplitudes obey algebraic finite difference equations. By analyzing the recursive structure of our factorization formula we obtain simple diagrammatic rules for the construction of Mellin amplitudes corresponding to tree-level Witten diagrams in any bulk scalar theory. We prove the diagrammatic rules using our finite difference equations. Finally, we show that our factorization formula and our diagrammatic rules morph into the flat space S-Matrix of the bulk theory, reproducing the usual Feynman rules, when we take the flat space limit of AdS/CFT. Throughout we emphasize a deep analogy with the properties of flat space scattering amplitudes in momentum space, which suggests that the Mellin amplitude may provide a holographic definition of the flat space S-Matrix.

Citation

Fitzpatrick, A. L., Kaplan, J., Penedones, J., Raju, S., & van Rees, B. C. (2011). A natural language for AdS/CFT correlators. Journal of High Energy Physics, 2011(11), Article 095. https://doi.org/10.1007/jhep11%282011%29095

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Nov 7, 2011
Online Publication Date Nov 21, 2011
Publication Date Nov 21, 2011
Deposit Date Feb 1, 2017
Publicly Available Date Mar 29, 2024
Journal Journal of High Energy Physics
Print ISSN 1126-6708
Publisher Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati (SISSA)
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 2011
Issue 11
Article Number 095
DOI https://doi.org/10.1007/jhep11%282011%29095

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Publisher Licence URL
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

Copyright Statement
© The Author(s) 2011 Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons
Attribution Noncommercial License which permits any noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited.





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