HEP Theory Journal Club

The BCFW recursion relations for scattering amplitudes (and their extension to AdS)

Laure-Anne Douxchamps

Université Libre de Bruxelles

Scattering amplitudes are decisive objects in confronting theoretical predictions with experimental results. However, high energy processes present such complexity that the computation of their amplitudes is often out of reach even for powerful computers. Despite this, results do not always reflect that intricacy, which has led people to think there might be some simpler way to obtain them. In this talk I will review the BCFW recursion relations, that allow to write tree-level amplitudes for n particles recursively in terms of amplitudes for 3 particles. There have been many extensions of these relations, and I will briefly review as well a proposal for curved space made by S. Raju. Via AdS/CFT correspondence, these recursion relations might provide insight into correlation functions on the boundary.