Energy correlators in perturbative quantum gravity
- 1University of California, Los Angeles
- 2Yale University
Abstract
A bstract Despite tremendous progress in our understanding of scattering amplitudes in perturbative (super-) gravity, much less is known about other asymptotic observables, such as correlation functions of detector operators. In this paper, we initiate the study of detector operators and their correlation functions in perturbative quantum gravity. Inspired by recent progress in field theory, we introduce a broad class of new asymptotic observables in gravity. We outline how correlation functions of detector operators can be efficiently computed from squared, state-summed amplitudes, allowing us to harness the wealth of perturbative scattering amplitude data to explore these observables. We then compute the two-point correlator of energy detectors in the annihilation of two scalars into gravitons, in Einstein gravity minimally coupled to a massive scalar field. We study the kinematic limits of this correlator, finding that it is finite in the collinear limit, and exhibits a soft divergence in the back-to-back limit, as expected from the understanding of the factorization of gravitational amplitudes in the soft and collinear limits. Our results offer a first exploration into the structure of detector operators and their correlators in perturbative quantum gravity, and we outline numerous directions for future study.
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BibTeX
@article{herrmann2026energy,
title = {{Energy correlators in perturbative quantum gravity}},
author = {Enrico Herrmann and Murat Koloğlu and Ian Moult},
journal = {Journal of High Energy Physics},
year = {2026},
month = jul,
doi = {10.1007/jhep07(2026)126},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1007/jhep07(2026)126},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Energy correlators in perturbative quantum gravity
AU - Enrico Herrmann
AU - Murat Koloğlu
AU - Ian Moult
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/07/15
JO - Journal of High Energy Physics
DO - 10.1007/jhep07(2026)126
UR - https://doi.org/10.1007/jhep07(2026)126
AB - A bstract Despite tremendous progress in our understanding of scattering amplitudes in perturbative (super-) gravity, much less is known about other asymptotic observables, such as correlation functions of detector operators. In this paper, we initiate the study of detector operators and their correlation functions in perturbative quantum gravity. Inspired by recent progress in field theory, we introduce a broad class of new asymptotic observables in gravity. We outline how correlation functions of detector operators can be efficiently computed from squared, state-summed amplitudes, allowing us to harness the wealth of perturbative scattering amplitude data to explore these observables. We then compute the two-point correlator of energy detectors in the annihilation of two scalars into gravitons, in Einstein gravity minimally coupled to a massive scalar field. We study the kinematic limits of this correlator, finding that it is finite in the collinear limit, and exhibits a soft divergence in the back-to-back limit, as expected from the understanding of the factorization of gravitational amplitudes in the soft and collinear limits. Our results offer a first exploration into the structure of detector operators and their correlators in perturbative quantum gravity, and we outline numerous directions for future study.
SN - 1029-8479
SN - 1126-6708
SN - 1127-2236
ER -