paulbalduf,
@paulbalduf@mathstodon.xyz avatar

In , scattering amplitudes can be computed as sums of (very many) s. They contribute differently much, with most integrals contributing near the average (scaled to 1.0 in the plots), but a "long tail" of integrals that are larger by a significant factor.
We looked at patterns in these distributions, and one particularly striking one is that if instead of the Feynman integral P itself, you consider 1 divided by root of P, the distribution is almost Gaussian! To my knowledge, this is the first time anything like this has been observed. We only looked at one quantum field theory, the "phi^4 theory in 4 dimensions". It would be interesting to see if this is coincidence for this particular theory and class of Feynman integrals, or if it persists universally.
More background and relevant papers at https://paulbalduf.com/research/statistics-periods/

image/jpeg
image/jpeg

johncarlosbaez,
@johncarlosbaez@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@paulbalduf - that's a great observation! Have you written a paper about it? It's worthwhile, even if it's only true for the ϕ₄⁴ theory. Which class of Feynman diagrams were you considering? E.g. 4-point functions?

paulbalduf,
@paulbalduf@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@johncarlosbaez These are primitive (=subdivergence-free) graphs for the 4-point function. Hence, these numbers are independent of the chosen renormalization scheme (this is one reason we concentrated on this class).
These observations are contained in https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/JHEP11(2023)160
We have since made the complete data set available, it can be downloaded from
https://borealisdata.ca/dataset.xhtml?persistentId=doi:10.5683/SP3/NLEDGH

johncarlosbaez,
@johncarlosbaez@mathstodon.xyz avatar

@paulbalduf - thanks! I'll check out the paper and tell some people about it.

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • physics
  • magazineikmin
  • rosin
  • Youngstown
  • mdbf
  • ngwrru68w68
  • slotface
  • khanakhh
  • ethstaker
  • everett
  • kavyap
  • thenastyranch
  • DreamBathrooms
  • tacticalgear
  • osvaldo12
  • JUstTest
  • InstantRegret
  • Durango
  • cisconetworking
  • modclub
  • cubers
  • GTA5RPClips
  • tester
  • normalnudes
  • Leos
  • provamag3
  • megavids
  • anitta
  • lostlight
  • All magazines