Scattering on self-dual Taub-NUT

Source abstract

Abstract We derive exact solutions of massless free field equations and tree-level two-point amplitudes up to spin 2 on self-dual Taub-NUT (SDTN) spacetime, as well as on its single copy, the self-dual dyon (SDD). We use Killing spinors to build analogues of momentum eigenstates, finding that, in the spirit of color-kinematics duality, those for the SDD lift directly to provide states on the SDTN background if one replaces charge with energy. We discover that they are forced to have faster growth at infinity than in flat space due to the topological non-triviality of these backgrounds. The amplitudes for massless scalars and spinning particles in the ( + + ) and ( + − ) helicity configurations vanish for generic kinematics as a consequence of the integrability of the self-dual sector. The ( − − ) amplitudes are non-vanishing and we compute them exactly in the backgrounds, which are treated non-perturbatively. It is explained how spin is easily introduced via a Newman–Janis imaginary shift along the spin-vector leading directly to the well-known exponential factor in the dot product of the spin with the momenta. We also observe a double copy relation between the gluon amplitude on a SDD and graviton amplitude on a SDTN spacetime.