Note on the asymptotic structure of Kerr-Schild form

The Kerr-Schild form provides a natural way of realizing the classical double copy that relates exact solutions in general relativity to exact solutions in gauge theory. In this paper, we examine the asymptotic structure of Kerr-Schild form. In Newman-Unti gauge, we find a generic solution space satisfying the Kerr-Schild form in series expansion around null infinity. The news function in the solution space is chiral and can not lead to a mass loss formula. A class of asymptotically flat complex pp-wave solutions in closed form is obtained from the solution space.

Anyons and the double copy

We examine the double copy structure of anyons in gauge theory and gravity. Using on-shell amplitude techniques, we construct little group covariant spinor-helicity variables describing massive particles with spin, which together with locality and unitarity enables us to derive the long-range tree-level scattering amplitudes involving anyons. We discover that classical gauge theory anyon solutions double copy to their gravitational counterparts in a non-trivial manner. Interestingly, we show that the massless double copy captures the topological structure of curved spacetime in three dimensions by introducing a non-trivial mixing of the topological graviton and the dilaton. Finally, we show that the celebrated Aharonov-Bohm phase can be derived directly from the constructed on-shell amplitude, and that it too enjoys a simple double copy to its gravitational counterpart.

Lie polynomials and a twistorial correspondence for amplitudes

We review Lie polynomials as a mathematical framework that underpins the structure of the so-called double copy relationship between gauge and gravity theories (and a network of other theories besides). We explain how Lie polynomials naturally arise in the geometry and cohomology of $$\mathcal {M}_{0,n}$$ M 0 , n , the moduli space of n points on the Riemann sphere up to Mobiüs transformation. We introduce a twistorial correspondence between the cotangent bundle $$T^*_D\mathcal {M}_{0,n}$$ T D ∗ M 0 , n , the bundle of forms with logarithmic singularities on the divisor D as the twistor space, and $$\mathcal {K}_n$$ K n the space of momentum invariants of n massless particles subject to momentum conservation as the analogue of space–time. This gives a natural framework for Cachazo He and Yuan (CHY) and ambitwistor-string formulae for scattering amplitudes of gauge and gravity theories as being the corresponding Penrose transform. In particular, we show that it gives a natural correspondence between CHY half-integrands and scattering forms, certain $$n-3$$ n - 3 -forms on $$\mathcal {K}_n$$ K n , introduced by Arkani-Hamed, Bai, He and Yan (ABHY). We also give a generalization and more invariant description of the associahedral $$n-3$$ n - 3 -planes in $$\mathcal {K}_n$$ K n introduced by ABHY.

Worldline description of a bi-adjoint scalar and the zeroth copy

Bi-adjoint scalars are helpful in studying properties of color/kinematics duality and the double copy, which relates scattering amplitudes of gauge and gravity theories. Here we study bi-adjoint scalars from a worldline perspective. We show how a global G × $$ \overset{\sim }{G} $$ G ~ symmetry group may be realized by worldline degrees of freedom. The worldline action gives rise to vertex operators, which are compared to similar ones describing the coupling to gauge fields and gravity, thus exposing the color/kinematics interplay in this framework. The action is quantized by path integrals to find a worldline representation of the one-loop QFT effective action of the bi-adjoint scalar cubic theory. As simple applications, we recover the one-loop beta function of the theory in six dimensions, verifying its vanishing, and compute the self-energy correction to the propagator. The model is easily extendable to that of a particle carrying an arbitrary representation of direct products of global symmetry groups, including the multi-adjoint particle, whose one-loop beta function we reproduce as well.

Asymptotic Weyl double copy

A characteristic value formulation of the Weyl double copy leads to an asymptotic formulation. We find that the Weyl double copy holds asymptotically in cases where the full solution is algebraically general, using rotating STU supergravity black holes as an example. The asymptotic formulation provides clues regarding the relation between asymptotic symmetries that follows from the double copy. Using the C-metric as an example, we show that a previous interpretation of this gravity solution as a superrotation has a single copy analogue relating the appropriate Liénard-Wiechert potential to a large gauge transformation.

On the double copy for spinning matter

We explore various tree-level double copy constructions for amplitudes including massive particles with spin. By working in general dimensions, we use that particles with spins s ≤ 2 are fundamental to argue that the corresponding double copy relations partially follow from compactification of their massless counterparts. This massless origin fixes the coupling of gluons, dilatons and axions to matter in a characteristic way (for instance fixing the gyromagnetic ratio), whereas the graviton couples universally reflecting the equivalence principle. For spin-1 matter we conjecture all-order Lagrangians reproducing the interactions with up to two massive lines and we test them in a classical setup, where the massive lines represent spinning compact objects such as black holes. We also test the amplitudes via CHY formulae for both bosonic and fermionic integrands. At five points, we show that by applying generalized gauge transformations one can obtain a smooth transition from quantum to classical BCJ double copy relations for radiation, thereby providing a QFT derivation for the latter. As an application, we show how the theory arising in the classical double copy of Goldberger and Ridgway can be naturally identified with a certain compactification of $$ \mathcal{N} $$ N = 4 Supergravity.

Covariant color-kinematics duality

We show that color-kinematics duality is a manifest property of the equations of motion governing currents and field strengths. For the nonlinear sigma model (NLSM), this insight enables an implementation of the double copy at the level of fields, as well as an explicit construction of the kinematic algebra and associated kinematic current. As a byproduct, we also derive new formulations of the special Galileon (SG) and Born-Infeld (BI) theory.For Yang-Mills (YM) theory, this same approach reveals a novel structure — covariant color-kinematics duality — whose only difference from the conventional duality is that 1/□ is replaced with covariant 1/D2. Remarkably, this structure implies that YM theory is itself the covariant double copy of gauged biadjoint scalar (GBAS) theory and an F3 theory of field strengths encoding a corresponding kinematic algebra and current. Directly applying the double copy to equations of motion, we derive general relativity (GR) from the product of Einstein-YM and F3 theory. This exercise reveals a trivial variant of the classical double copy that recasts any solution of GR as a solution of YM theory in a curved background.Covariant color-kinematics duality also implies a new decomposition of tree-level amplitudes in YM theory into those of GBAS theory. Using this representation we derive a closed-form, analytic expression for all BCJ numerators in YM theory and the NLSM for any number of particles in any spacetime dimension. By virtue of the double copy, this constitutes an explicit formula for all tree-level scattering amplitudes in YM, GR, NLSM, SG, and BI.