Michael Borinsky - Tropical(ized) quantum field theory

This lecture was part of the Thematic Programme on "Amplitudes and Algebraic Geometry" held at the ESI February 19 - March 27, 2026.

I will explain how to tropicalize scalar quantum field theory and show that tropicalized massive scalar quantum field theory is exactly solvable. This exact solution manifests as a non-linear recursion equation fulfilled by the expansion coefficients of the quantum effective action. Geometrically, this recursion computes specific volumes of moduli spaces of metric graphs and is thereby analogous to Mirzakhani's volume recursions on the moduli space of curves. Building on this exact solution, we construct an algorithm that samples points from the moduli space of graphs approximately proportional to their perturbative contribution. Remarkably, this algorithm requires only polynomial time and memory, suggesting that perturbative quantum field theory computations lie in the polynomial-time complexity class, while all known algorithms for evaluating individual Feynman integrals are exponential in time and memory. To demonstrate the capabilities of the algorithm, we evaluate the primitive contribution to the phi4 beta function at 50 loops and phi3 theory correlation functions in D=3 up to 20 loops with a proof-of-concept implementation.

Видео Michael Borinsky - Tropical(ized) quantum field theory канала Erwin Schrödinger International Institute for Mathematics and Physics (ESI)