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arxiv: 0705.4305 · v2 · submitted 2007-05-29 · ✦ hep-th

Consistency Conditions on the S-Matrix of Massless Particles

classification ✦ hep-th
keywords spinconditionsparticlestheoriess-matrixconsistencyconstructibleimpossibility
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We introduce a set of consistency conditions on the S-matrix of theories of massless particles of arbitrary spin in four-dimensional Minkowski space-time. We find that in most cases the constraints, derived from the conditions, can only be satisfied if the S-matrix is trivial. Our conditions apply to theories where four-particle scattering amplitudes can be obtained from three-particle ones via a recent technique called BCFW construction. We call theories in this class constructible. We propose a program for performing a systematic search of constructible theories that can have non-trivial S-matrices. As illustrations, we provide simple proofs of already known facts like the impossibility of spin $s > 2$ non-trivial S-matrices, the impossibility of several spin 2 interacting particles and the uniqueness of a theory with spin 2 and spin 3/2 particles.

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