Cutting through form factors and cross sections of non-protected operators in N=4 SYM

Understand

We study the form factors of the Konishi operator, the prime example of non-protected operators in N=4 SYM theory, via the on-shell unitarity methods.

• Since the Konishi operator is not protected by supersymmetry, its form factors share many features with those in QCD, such as the occurrence of rational terms and of UV divergences that require renormalization.
• A subtle point is that this operator depends on the spacetime dimension.
• This requires a modification when calculating its form factors via unitarity methods.