Spinor-helicity formalism for continuous-spin particles

Abstract

We propose a new formulation of continuous-spin particles (CSP) with the help of a single two-component spinor to build asymptotic states. This formulation allows to write down amplitudes in a straightforward way, similar to the massless spinor-helicity approach. The helicity states naturally emerge upon decomposing into components of a fixed homogeneity degree. We show that CSP amplitudes can be understood as the infinite-spin limit of amplitudes of massive particles and, similarly to the scattering of black holes, a certain universal factor exponentiates. In analogy with the recent discovery of collinear amplitudes in self-dual theories, we find nontrivial CSP collinear amplitudes where the collinear fractions are constrained by the dimensionful parameter characterising the various continuous-spin particles.

46 pages