Subleading Collinear Limits of Yang-Mills Amplitudes from Gravity

Abstract

We show that the subleading collinear sector of Yang-Mills (YM) amplitudes is controlled by ordinary Einstein-Yang-Mills (EYM) amplitudes and their higher-derivative corrections. The complete set of strict subleading collinear limits associated with an equal-helicity collinear pair can be extracted from open-closed string disk amplitudes. The latter generate $\frac12 (n-3)!$ BCJ-like relations with non-linear kinematic coefficients, reducing the $(n-3)!$ collinear data to a basis of dimension $\frac12 (n-3)!$. This reduced basis can be represented by gravitational amplitudes in EYM theories and by their higher-derivative open-string corrections. At multiplicity $n$ this gravitational basis consists of the $(n-4)!$ independent EYM subamplitudes together with $\frac12 (n-5)(n-4)!$ higher-order corrections involving one graviton and $n-2$ gluons. The resulting decomposition is governed by unsigned Stirling numbers of the first kind: the ordinary EYM amplitudes correspond to the sector $\left[{n-3\atop 1}\right]$, the higher-order BCJ-like relations to even sectors $\left[{n-3\atop 2j}\right]$, and the higher-derivative EYM corrections to odd sectors $\left[{n-3\atop 2j+1}\right]$ with $j\geq 1$.