We present a twistor-like formula for the complete tree-level S matrix of 6D (2, 0) supergravity coupled to 21 abelian tensor multiplets. This is the low-energy effective theory that corresponds to Type IIB superstring theory compactified on a K3 surface. The formula is expressed as an integral over the moduli space of certain rational maps of the punctured Riemann sphere. By studying soft limits of the formula, we are able to explore the local moduli space of this theory, SO(5,21) SO(5) ×SO(21) . Finally, by dimensional reduction, we also obtain a new formula for the tree-level S matrix of 4D N = 4 Einstein-Maxwell theory.

We study loop corrections to scattering amplitudes in the world-volume theory of a probe D3-brane, which is described by the supersymmetric Dirac-Born-Infeld theory. We show that the D3-brane loop superamplitudes can be obtained from the tree-level superamplitudes in the world-volume theory of a probe M5-brane (or D5-brane). The M5-brane theory describes self-interactions of an abelian tensor supermultiplet with (2, 0) supersymmetry, and the tree-level superamplitudes are given by a twistor formula. We apply the construction to the maximally-helicity-violating (MHV) amplitudes in the D3brane theory at one-loop order, which are purely rational terms (except for the four-point amplitude). The results are further confirmed by generalised unitarity methods. Through a supersymmetry reduction on the M5-brane tree-level superamplitudes, we also construct one-loop corrections to the non-supersymmetric D3-brane amplitudes, which agree with the known results in the literature.

In this letter we show that the soft behaviour of photons and graviton amplitudes, after projection, can be determined to infinite order in soft expansion via ordinary on-shell gauge invariance. In particular, as one of the particle's momenta becomes soft, gauge invariance relates the non-singular diagrams of an n-point amplitude to that of the singular ones up to possible homogeneous terms. We demonstrate that with a particular projection of the soft-limit, the homogeneous terms do not contribute, and one arrives at an infinite soft theorem. This reproduces the result recently derived from the Ward identity of large gauge transformations. We also discuss the modification of these soft theorems due to the presence of higher-dimensional operators.

In this paper, we introduce the momentum space amplituhedron for tree-level scattering amplitudes of ABJM theory. We demonstrate that the scattering amplitude can be identified as the canonical form on the space given by the product of positive orthogonal Grassmannian and the moment curve. The co-dimension one boundaries of this space are simply the odd-particle planar Mandelstam variables, while the even-particle counterparts are “hidden” as higher co-dimension boundaries. Remarkably, this space can be equally defined through a series of “sign flip” requirements of the projected external data, identical to “half” of four-dimensional $$ \mathcal{N} $$ N = 4 super Yang-Mills theory (sYM). Thus in a precise sense the geometry for ABJM lives on the boundary of $$ \mathcal{N} $$ N = 4 sYM. We verify this relation through eight-points by showing that the BCFW triangulation of the amplitude tiles the amplituhedron. The canonical form is naturally derived using the Grassmannian formula for the amplitude in the $$ \mathcal{N} $$ N = 4 formalism for ABJM theory.