Multiparticle Factorization and the Rigidity of String Theory
Abstract
Is string theory uniquely determined by self-consistency? Causality and unitarity seemingly permit a multitude of putative deformations, at least at the level of two-to-two scattering. Motivated by this question, we initiate a systematic exploration of the constraints on scattering from higher-point factorization, which imposes extraordinarily restrictive sum rules on the residues and spectra defined by a given amplitude. These bounds handily exclude several proposed deformations of the string: the simplest “bespoke” amplitudes with tunable masses and a family of modified string integrands from “binary geometry.” While the string itself passes all tests, our formalism directly extracts the three-point amplitudes for the low-lying string modes without the aid of worldsheet vertex operators.
Copyright and License
Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI.
Funding
Funded by SCOAP3.
Acknowledgement
Data Availability
The Supplemental Materials provide the six-point sum rules whose construction is described in the Letter. The sum rules are given in pdf form in Six-Point_Sum_Rules.pdf and in simple text form in sumrules.txt. This text file, with notation described in README.txt., can be straightforwardly read into a computer program (e.g., Mathematica), for readers wanting to check consistency of their own multiparticle amplitudes.
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Additional details
- ISSN
- 1079-7114
- SCOAP3
- United States Department of Energy
- DE-SC0009988
- Simons Foundation
- California Institute of Technology
- Walter Burke Institute for Theoretical Physics
- United States Department of Energy
- DE-SC0011632
- Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia
- 2023.01221.BD
- New York University
- Caltech groups
- Walter Burke Institute for Theoretical Physics