A new Wilson line-based action for gluodynamics

Abstract

We perform a canonical transformation of fields that brings the Yang-Mills action in the light-cone gauge to a new classical action, which does not involve any triple-gluon vertices. The lowest order vertex is the four-point MHV vertex. Higher point vertices include the MHV and $\overline{\mathrm{MHV}}$ vertices, that reduce to the corresponding amplitudes in the on-shell limit. In general, any n -leg vertex has 2 ≤ m ≤ n - 2 negative helicity legs. The canonical transformation of fields can be compactly expressed in terms of path-ordered exponentials of fields and their functional derivative. We apply the new action to compute several tree-level amplitudes, up to 8-point NNMHV amplitude, and find agreement with the standard methods. The absence of triple-gluon vertices results in fewer diagrams required to compute amplitudes, when compared to the CSW method and, obviously, considerably fewer than in the standard Yang-Mills action.