Tree level integrability in 2d quantum field theories and affine Toda models

Abstract

Abstract We investigate the perturbative integrability of massive (1+1)-dimensional bosonic quantum field theories, focusing on the conditions for them to have a purely elastic S-matrix, with no particle production and diagonal scattering, at tree level. For theories satisfying what we call ‘simply-laced scattering conditions’, by which we mean that poles in inelastic 2 to 2 processes cancel in pairs, and poles in allowed processes are only due to one on-shell propagating particle at a time, the requirement that all inelastic amplitudes must vanish is shown to imply the so-called area rule, connecting the 3-point couplings $$ {C}_{abc}^{(3)} $$ C abc 3 to the masses ma, mb, mc of the coupled particles in a universal way. We prove that the constraints we find are universally satisfied by all affine Toda theories, connecting pole cancellations in amplitudes to properties of the underlying root systems, and develop a number of tools that we expect will be relevant for the study of loop amplitudes.