String Theory seminar - Paul Heslop Seminar

 

Correlation functions of half BPS operators in planar N=4 SYM are dual (at strong coupling, via AdS/CFT) to supergravity in AdS_5xS^5. At weak coupling in the limit where the operators are consecutively lightlike separated, they yield scattering amplitudes. At four-points they contain within them information about an infinite number of 3-point functions involving more complicated operators, which have been the subject of a recent remarkable conjecture using integrability. In this talk, I will review the progress over the last few years in computing these correlation functions perturbatively, culminating in the recent eight loop result for the 4-pnt stress-energy correlator and the result for all half-BPS 4-pnt correlators at 3 loops.