A mathematical perspective on nonplanar on-shell forms

Source abstract

On-shell forms are differential forms on the Grassmannian which arise in particle physics. They are defined using bipartite graphs with $n$ distinguished ``boundary'' vertices. Mathematical investigation of on-shell forms has largely focused on the case where the graph is planar, in which case one can utilize combinatorial tools pioneered by Postnikov in the study of the totally nonnegative Grassmannian. In this article, we investigate on-shell forms for arbitrary graphs. We first discuss how to extend various tools from the planar case to arbitrary graphs. We then prove a determinantal formula for a class of on-shell forms which first appeared in physics literature. We explain the relation between this class of forms and the hypertree divisors of $M_{0,n}$, introduced by Castravet--Tevelev.