Worldsheet methods for perturbative quantum field theory
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This thesis is divided into two parts. The first part concerns the study of the ambitwistor string and the scattering equations, while the second concerns the interplay of the symmetries of the asymptotic null boundary of Minkowski space, called
The first part begins with a review of the CHY formulas for scattering amplitudes, the scattering equations and the ambitwistor string including its pure spinor version. Next are the results of this thesis concerning these topics, they are: generalizing the ambitwistor model to higher genus surfaces; calculating the one-loop NS-NS scattering amplitudes and studying their modular and factorization properties; deriving the one-loop scattering equations and analyzing their factorization; showing that, in the case of the four graviton amplitude, the ambitwistor amplitude gives the expected kinematical prefactor; matching this amplitude to the field theory expectation in a particular kinematical regime; solving the one loop scattering equations in this kinematical regime; a conjecture for the IR behaviour of the one-loop ambitwistor integrand; computing the four graviton, two-loop amplitude using pure spinors; showing that this two-loop amplitude has the correct kinematical prefactor and factorizes as expected for a field theory amplitude; generalizing the ambitwistor string to curved backgrounds; obtaining the field equations for type II supergravity as anomaly cancellation on the worldsheet; generalizing the scattering equations for curved backgrounds.
The second part begins with a review of the definition of the null asymptotic boundary of four dimensional Minkowski space, its symmetry algebra, and their relation to soft particles in the S-matrix. Next are the results of this thesis concerning these topics, they are: constructing two models consisting of maps from a worldsheet to