Jefferson J368, 17 Oxford Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138
Title: The Landscape of Stringy Amplitudes
Abstract: Recent results have shown that the mathematical miracles achieved by string amplitudes—notably, dual resonance and UV softness, with infinite towers of spinning states—are not unique to the string, at least for four-point scattering. These surprises raise the question about whether there is a space of consistent deformations of string amplitudes at weak coupling. In this talk, I will build new tools to test unitarity of higher-point scattering, finding that higher-point factorization is an incredibly powerful technique for constraining modifications of the string. Furthermore, I will consider the analytic structure of the five-point string amplitude itself at tree level, constructing the first explicit, globally convergent representation. If time permits, I will also discuss ongoing work on bootstrapping string amplitudes using the structure of zeros in the dual resonant sum. Bottom-up constructions of this type, making use of the modern amplitudes program, work in concert with the top-down approaches of the Swampland in the quest to understand the range of what string theory can do and the space of possibilities for quantum gravity.