Twistor space

Abstract: Perturbative scattering amplitudes in Yang-Mills theory have many unexpected properties, such as holomorphy of the maximally helicity violating amplitudes. To interpret these results, we Fourier transform the scattering amplitudes from momentum space to twistor space, and argue that the transformed amplitudes are supported on certain holomorphic curves. This in turn is apparently a consequence of an equivalence between the perturbative expansion of = 4 super Yang-Mills theory and the D-instanton expansion of a certain string theory, namely the topological B model whose target space is the Calabi-Yau supermanifold

Abstract: Perturbative scattering amplitudes in Yang-Mills theory have many unexpected properties, such as holomorphy of the maximally helicity violating amplitudes. To interpret these results, we Fourier transform the scattering amplitudes from momentum space to twistor space, and argue that the transformed amplitudes are supported on certain holomorphic curves. This in turn is apparently a consequence of an equivalence between the perturbative expansion of ${\cal N}=4$ super Yang-Mills theory and the $D$-instanton expansion of a certain string theory, namely the topological $B$ model whose target space is the Calabi-Yau supermanifold $\Bbb{CP}^{3|4}$.

Abstract: A new approach to the quantization of general relativity is suggested in which a state consisting of just one graviton can be described, but in a way which involves both the curvature and nonlinearities of Einstein's theory. It is felt that this approach can be justified solely on its own merits, but it also receives striking encouragement from another direction: a surprising mathematical result enables one to construct the general such nonlinear gravitation state from a curved twistor space, the construction being given in terms of one arbitrary holomorphic function of three complex variables. In this way, the approach fits naturally into the general twistor program for the description of quantized fields.