Multi-particle Celestial Operator Product Expansions from the Boundary

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Authors: Mathew Calkins, Monica Pate
Cited by: 0

Abstract

In celestial holography, scattering particles in four-dimensional asymptotically flat spacetimes are dual to conformal primary field operators on the celestial sphere. Multi-particle celestial operators can be formed from regularized coincident limits of single-particle celestial operators. The singular terms in the operator product expansion of multi-particle operators are shown to be determined entirely by the singular terms in the operator product expansion between single-particle celestial operators, as expected in a standard conformal field theory. Boundary operator product expansions in celestial holography are known to be dual to subtle collinear limits of bulk scattering amplitudes. The multi-particle operator product expansions derived from standard conformal-field theoretic techniques are shown to reproduce precisely the results from the corresponding bulk collinear limits in tree-level Yang-Mills and Einstein gravity. Finally, the coefficients of multi-particle celestial operator product expansions are derived from a third complementary method that enforces bulk four-dimensional translational invariance as a global symmetry of the celestial dual. The results of all three methods agree precisely.

Fields of Study & Subjects

Black Holes and Theoretical Physics Cosmology and Gravitation Theories Noncommutative and Quantum Gravity Theories

Publication details

Journal / source
arXiv (Cornell University)
Publication date
7 January 2026
Document type
Preprint