Virasoro–Shapiro amplitude

The Virasoro–Shapiro amplitude is the crossing-symmetric tree-level four-point amplitude of closed-string tachyons. Its worldsheet integral is a complex beta integral, and its poles display the closed-string spectrum.

For $t\simeq -as$, $u\simeq -(1-a)s$ with $0<a<1$, the smooth high-energy envelope satisfies $\log |A|\simeq -2s[-a\log a-(1-a)\log (1-a)]$. The Gamma function asymptotics cancel the leading $s\log s$ terms, leaving exponential suppression. Exact real-axis resonance poles must be excluded or treated by analytic continuation.

For $a=-1-{\alpha }^{\prime }s/4$, $b=-1-{\alpha }^{\prime }t/4$ and $a+b+c=1$, the amplitude has generic simple poles at $a=-n$. The Gamma function residue and recurrence giveThe residue polynomial has degree $2n$, consistent with closed-string exchange up to spin $2n$. When $a=-n+{\delta }_a$ and $b=-m+{\delta }_b$, the reciprocal factor $1/\Gamma (a+b)$ removes a putative double pole: the leading ratio is ${\left(\genfrac{}{}{0ex}{}{n+m}{n}\right)}^2(1/{\delta }_a+1/{\delta }_b)$. Thus channel singularities must be counted using the kinematic constraint, not by multiplying independent numerator poles.