Yang-Mills form factors on self-dual backgrounds

The construction of perturbative quantities on non-linear backgrounds leads to the possibility of incorporating strong field effects in perturbation theory. We continue a programme to construct QFT observables on self-dual backgrounds in Yang-Mills theory. The approach works with asymptotic data for fields defined at null infinity $$ \mathcal{I} $$I , extending earlier work on Yang-Mills amplitudes on self-dual backgrounds to form factors and further incorporating supersymmetry. Since our analysis is based on reconstruction from data at null infinity, it naturally ties into work on celestial and twisted holography. We study form factors both in pure Yang-Mills and their supersymmetric counterparts in $$ \mathcal{N} $$N = 4 SYM, giving a full treatment of $$ \mathcal{N} $$N = 4 super-Yang-Mills at null infinity and their self-dual nonlinear backgrounds. We obtain tree-level MHV form factors around these backgrounds using new formulae for lifting operators to twistor space leading to simple dressings of the corresponding form factors around the vacuum. We give brief indications on how to go beyond the MHV sector by introducing dressed versions of the MHV diagram propagator. We discuss generating functionals of the MHV all plus 1-loop amplitude in this context together with its various dual conformal representations.