${\mathrm{AdS}}_3$ Recursion Relations, Double Copy and ${\mathrm{CFT}}_2$ Ward Identities

Abstract

We consider correlation functions of massless fields in three-dimensional Anti-de Sitter spacetime. Using embedding-space spinors akin to spinor helicity variables, we show that masslessness implies holomorphicity. We perform a deformation of the spinors, analogous to the BCFW shift for flat-space amplitudes, to bootstrap correlation functions of Chern-Simons theory in the bulk. We show that the resulting recursion relations in the bulk ${\mathrm{AdS}}_3$ are equivalent to the usual ${\mathrm{CFT}}_2$ Ward identities for the boundary conserved currents. The double copy of those recursion relations is equivalent to the Ward identities for the stress-energy tensor. Our findings illustrate how modern amplitude techniques can shed new light on CFT correlators, and provide a novel interpretation of fundamental results in two-dimensional conformal field theory.

45 pages, 1 figure