Physics of the Analytic S-Matrix

Abstract: You might've heard about various mathematical properties of scattering amplitudes such as analyticity, sheets, branch cuts, discontinuities, etc. What does it all mean? In these lectures, we'll take a guided tour through simple scattering problems that will allow us to directly trace such properties back to physics. We'll learn how different analytic features of the S-matrix are really consequences of causality, locality of interactions, unitary propagation, and so on. These notes are based on a series of lectures given in Spring 2023 at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton and the Higgs Centre School of Theoretical Physics in Edinburgh.