Scattering amplitudes: the most perfect microscopic structures in the universe

Abstract

This review gives an overview of many of the recent developments in understanding the structure of relativistic scattering amplitudes in gauge theories ranging from QCD to super-Yang–Mills theory, as well as (super)gravity. I also provide a pedagogical introduction to some of the basic tools used to organize and illuminate the color and kinematic structure of amplitudes. This is an invited review introducing a special issue of Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and Theoretical devoted to ‘Scattering amplitudes in gauge theories’.