Spinor-helicity and the algebraic classification of higher-dimensional spacetimes

Understand

The spinor-helicity formalism is an essential technique of the amplitudes community.

• We draw on this method to construct a scheme for classifying higher-dimensional spacetimes in the style of the four-dimensional Petrov classification and the Newman-Penrose formalism.
• We focus on the five-dimensional case for concreteness.
• Our spinorial scheme naturally reproduces the full structure previously seen in both the CMPP and de Smet classifications, and resolves longstanding questions concerning the relationship between the two classifications.