Conformal Field Theories in Six-Dimensional Twistor Space

This article gives a study of the higher-dimensional Penrose transform between conformally invariant massless fields on space-time and cohomology classes on twistor space, where twistor space is defined to be the space of projective pure spinors of the conformal group. We focus on the 6-dimensional...

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Main Authors: Mason, L, Reid-Edwards, R, Taghavi-Chabert, A
Format: Journal article
Language:English
Published: Elsevier 2011
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author Mason, L
Reid-Edwards, R
Taghavi-Chabert, A
author_facet Mason, L
Reid-Edwards, R
Taghavi-Chabert, A
author_sort Mason, L
collection OXFORD
description This article gives a study of the higher-dimensional Penrose transform between conformally invariant massless fields on space-time and cohomology classes on twistor space, where twistor space is defined to be the space of projective pure spinors of the conformal group. We focus on the 6-dimensional case in which twistor space is the six-quadric Q in CP^7 with a view to applications to the self-dual (0,2)-theory. We show how spinor-helicity momentum eigenstates have canonically defined distributional representatives on twistor space (a story that we extend to arbitrary dimension). These give an elementary proof of the surjectivity of the Penrose transform. We give a direct construction of the twistor transform between the two different representations of massless fields on twistor space (H^2 and H^3) in which the H^3s arise as obstructions to extending the H^2s off Q into CP^7. We also develop the theory of Sparling's `\Xi-transform', the analogous totally real split signature story based now on real integral geometry where cohomology no longer plays a role. We extend Sparling's \Xi-transform to all helicities and homogeneities on twistor space and show that it maps kernels and cokernels of conformally invariant powers of the ultrahyperbolic wave operator on twistor space to conformally invariant massless fields on space-time. This is proved by developing the 6-dimensional analogue of the half-Fourier transform between functions on twistor space and momentum space. We give a treatment of the elementary conformally invariant \Phi^3 amplitude on twistor space and finish with a discussion of conformal field theories in twistor space.
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spelling oxford-uuid:59de7437-29d6-4544-8b95-05db7a84270d2022-03-26T17:12:16ZConformal Field Theories in Six-Dimensional Twistor SpaceJournal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:59de7437-29d6-4544-8b95-05db7a84270dEnglishSymplectic Elements at OxfordElsevier2011Mason, LReid-Edwards, RTaghavi-Chabert, AThis article gives a study of the higher-dimensional Penrose transform between conformally invariant massless fields on space-time and cohomology classes on twistor space, where twistor space is defined to be the space of projective pure spinors of the conformal group. We focus on the 6-dimensional case in which twistor space is the six-quadric Q in CP^7 with a view to applications to the self-dual (0,2)-theory. We show how spinor-helicity momentum eigenstates have canonically defined distributional representatives on twistor space (a story that we extend to arbitrary dimension). These give an elementary proof of the surjectivity of the Penrose transform. We give a direct construction of the twistor transform between the two different representations of massless fields on twistor space (H^2 and H^3) in which the H^3s arise as obstructions to extending the H^2s off Q into CP^7. We also develop the theory of Sparling's `\Xi-transform', the analogous totally real split signature story based now on real integral geometry where cohomology no longer plays a role. We extend Sparling's \Xi-transform to all helicities and homogeneities on twistor space and show that it maps kernels and cokernels of conformally invariant powers of the ultrahyperbolic wave operator on twistor space to conformally invariant massless fields on space-time. This is proved by developing the 6-dimensional analogue of the half-Fourier transform between functions on twistor space and momentum space. We give a treatment of the elementary conformally invariant \Phi^3 amplitude on twistor space and finish with a discussion of conformal field theories in twistor space.
spellingShingle Mason, L
Reid-Edwards, R
Taghavi-Chabert, A
Conformal Field Theories in Six-Dimensional Twistor Space
title Conformal Field Theories in Six-Dimensional Twistor Space
title_full Conformal Field Theories in Six-Dimensional Twistor Space
title_fullStr Conformal Field Theories in Six-Dimensional Twistor Space
title_full_unstemmed Conformal Field Theories in Six-Dimensional Twistor Space
title_short Conformal Field Theories in Six-Dimensional Twistor Space
title_sort conformal field theories in six dimensional twistor space
work_keys_str_mv AT masonl conformalfieldtheoriesinsixdimensionaltwistorspace
AT reidedwardsr conformalfieldtheoriesinsixdimensionaltwistorspace
AT taghavichaberta conformalfieldtheoriesinsixdimensionaltwistorspace