Spacetime Symmetries and Semiclassical Amplitudes

Abstract

We examine the spacetime symmetries of forward $2 \rightarrow 2$ scattering. These symmetries have non-trivial consequences for any class of configurations which might dominate the amplitude in the semiclassical approximation. We derive some dynamical results regarding the stability of configurations which arise solely from reflection symmetry and positivity of the (Euclidean) path integral action. We show that in the case of on-shell scattering, any semiclassical configuration must have $O(3)$ symmetric asymptotic behavior. We argue that non--$O(3)$ symmetric configurations are irrelevant to the semiclassical exponent.