Form Factor Alphabets and Antipodal Duality from Cluster Algebras

Abstract

We develop a cluster-algebraic description of symbol alphabets for chiral stress-tensor form factors in planar $\mathcal N=4$ super-Yang--Mills theory. Motivated by unfolding the three-point $C_2$ quiver, we propose a periodic framework for $n$-point form-factor alphabets based on folding a $\mathrm{Gr}(4,2n)$ quiver with two periods of frozen nodes. At four points, the folding leads to the $\widetilde{\mathrm{VI}}$ cluster algebra, which has infinitely many cluster variables. Tropical truncation selects a finite set of rational coordinates and four physical limit rays. The $A_1^{(1)}$ mutation sequences approaching these rays generate the four square roots and the corresponding algebraic-letter spaces. Within the resulting finite set of rational candidates, antipodal closure excludes precisely eight additional letters. On the parity-preserving surface, the antipodal map is realized, after a further folding, by two commuting mutations followed by a relabelling. Furthermore, we find an alternative quiver within the same mutation class that becomes self-antipodal after parity folding, mirroring the antipodal self-duality of the four-point MHV form factor. Its double- and triple-collinear boundaries reproduce, respectively, the $C_2$ algebra of the three-point form factor and the $A_3$ algebra of the six-point amplitude; after folding the latter to $C_2$, the antipodal map exchanges the two $C_2$ boundaries.