Little string amplitudes (and the unreasonable effectiveness of 6D SYM)

Abstract

We study tree level scattering amplitudes of four massless states in the double scaled little string theory, and compare them to perturbative loop amplitudes in six-dimensional super-Yang-Mills theory. The little string amplitudes are computed from correlators in the cigar coset CFT and in N = 2 minimal models. The results are expressed in terms of integrals of conformal blocks and evaluated numerically in the α ′ expansion. We find striking agreements with up to 2-loop scattering amplitudes of massless gluons in 6D SU(k) SYM at a ℤ [subscript k] invariant point on the Coulomb branch. We comment on the issue of UV divergence at higher loop orders in the gauge theory and discuss the implication of our results.