Twistor theory at fifty: from contour integrals to twistor strings

DOI10.1098/RSPA.2017.0530zbMATH Open1404.81004arXiv1704.07464OpenAlexW3098806697WikidataQ51559704 ScholiaQ51559704MaRDI QIDQ4646876FDOQ4646876

Authors: Maciej Dunajski, L. J. Mason, Michael Atiyah 

Publication date: 28 December 2018

Published in: Proceedings of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: We review aspects of twistor theory, its aims and achievements spanning thelast five decades. In the twistor approach, space--time is secondary with events being derived objects that correspond to compact holomorphic curves in a complex three--fold -- the twistor space. After giving an elementary construction of this space we demonstrate how solutions to linear and nonlinear equations of mathematical physics: anti-self-duality (ASD) equations on Yang--Mills, or conformal curvature can be encoded into twistor cohomology. These twistor correspondences yield explicit examples of Yang--Mills, and gravitational instantons which we review. They also underlie the twistor approach to integrability: the solitonic systems arise as symmetry reductions of ASD Yang--Mills equations, and Einstein--Weyl dispersionless systems are reductions of ASD conformal equations. We then review the holomorphic string theories in twistor and ambitwistor spaces, and explain how these theories give rise to remarkable new formulae for the computation of quantum scattering amplitudes. Finally we discuss the Newtonian limit of twistor theory, and its possible role in Penrose's proposal for a role of gravity in quantum collapse of a wave function.

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/1704.07464

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zbMATH Keywords

instantonsintegrable systemstwistor theoryself-dualitytwistor strings

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

History of mathematics in the 20th century (01A60) Research exposition (monographs, survey articles) pertaining to quantum theory (81-02) Groups and algebras in quantum theory and relations with integrable systems (81R12) Spinor and twistor methods applied to problems in quantum theory (81R25) String and superstring theories; other extended objects (e.g., branes) in quantum field theory (81T30) Quantum dynamics and nonequilibrium statistical mechanics (general) (82C10) History of quantum theory (81-03) Spinor and twistor methods in general relativity and gravitational theory; Newman-Penrose formalism (83C60)

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