amplituhedron

English

Etymology

From amplitude +‎ -hedron. Coined by Nima Arkani-Hamed and Jaroslav Trnka in 2013 and published in 2014 in an article in the Journal of High Energy Physics.

Noun

amplituhedron (plural amplituhedra or amplituhedrons)

1. (quantum field theories) A mathematical structure which encodes the integrand of an amplitude in planar N=4 super Yang-Mills theory, used in calculations of scattering amplitudes of particle interactions.

   Meronym: twistor

   • 2015, Yvon Gauthier, Towards an Arithmetical Logic, page 173:

     In another parallel universe the amplituhedron, a recent invention in quantum field theory, is a geometric form endowed with a positive Grassmannian, that is an internal arithmetical structure for the calculation of amplitudes in terms of k-planes filling up an n-dimensional space.

   • 2017, Richard L. Amoroso, Universal Quantum Computing, page 486:

     The amplituhedron is not built out of spacetime and probabilities; these properties merely arise as consequences of the jewel's geometry.

   • 2017 July 29, Anil Ananthaswamy, “The new shape of reality”, in New Scientist‎^[1], number 3136, page 31:

     Scattering amplitudes that obey the laws of locality and unitarity do emerge from amplituhedra. But unlike in Feynman diagrams, the amplituhedron does not start with space-time that has these properties.