- Accepted Paper
Hidden simplicity in AdS spinning Mellin amplitudes via scaffolding
Phys. Rev. Lett. - Accepted 10 September, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/2dww-769m
Phys. Rev. Lett. - Accepted 10 September, 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/2dww-769m
We uncover surprising hidden simplicity in Mellin amplitudes for tree-level AdS holographic correlators for AdS gluon'' (spin 1) operators. We define Mellin amplitudes with $n$ spinning operators via the so-calledscaffolding’’ of -scalar ones with specific projection operators for each spin state, which are rational functions of Mellin variables of scalars generalizing flat-space scaffolding amplitudes. We classify possible three-point structures with spin 1 which take the same form as massive three-point amplitudes in flat space, and match with special solutions such as those extracted from 6-scalar ones in . Focusing on gluons, we directly bootstrap spinning amplitudes in scaffolding form up to gluons (which amounts to scalars) using factorizations, multi-linearity and flat-space limit. The results take a remarkably simple form in analogy with flat-space amplitudes, which can be constructed from familiar 3- and 4-vertices as well as propagators of massive spin-1 particles. Surprisingly, we find that vertices with any descendant levels are proportional to the primary ones with nice combinatorial coefficients, which makes manifest the correct flat-space limit in the simplest possible way.
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