AdS Virasoro-Shapiro from dispersive sum rules

Abstract

We consider the four-point correlator of the stress-energy tensor in ${\cal N}=4$ SYM, to leading order in inverse powers of the central charge, but including all order corrections in $1/\lambda$. This corresponds to the AdS version of the Virasoro-Shapiro amplitude to all orders in the small $\alpha'$/low energy expansion. Using dispersion relations in Mellin space, we derive an infinite set of sum rules. These sum rules strongly constrain the form of the amplitude, and determine all coefficients in the low energy expansion in terms of the CFT data for heavy string operators, in principle available from integrability. For the first set of corrections to the flat space amplitude we find a unique solution consistent with the results from integrability and localisation.