Pairwise helicity in higher dimensions

Abstract

Studies of scattering amplitudes for electric and magnetic charges have identified previously overlooked multiparticle representations of the Poincaré group in four dimensions. Such representations associate nontrivial quantum numbers (known as pairwise helicities) with asymptotically separated pairs of particles, and thus cannot be described as tensor products of one-particle states. We extend this construction to sources and spacetimes of higher dimension. We first establish the dynamical origin of pairwise helicity in [Formula: see text]-form electrodynamics coupled to mutually nonlocal branes. We then interpret this pairwise helicity as a quantum number under an SO(2) pairwise little group associated with pairs of distinct branes. We further characterize the “higher” little groups that could in principle be used to induce multiparticle or multi-brane representations of the Lorentz group.