We develop a Mellin space approach to boundary correlation functions in anti-de Sitter (AdS) and de Sitter (dS) spaces. Using the Mellin-Barnes representation of correlators in Fourier space, we show that the analytic continuation between AdS_d+1 and dS_d+1 is encoded in a collection of simple relative phases. This allows us to determine the late-time tree-level three-point correlators of spinning fields in dS_d+1 from known results for Witten diagrams in AdS_d+1 by multiplication with a simple trigonometric factor. At four point level, we show that Conformal symmetry fixes exchange four-point functions both in AdS_d+1 and dS_d+1 in terms of the dual Conformal Partial Wave (which in Fourier space is a product of boundary three-point correlators) up to a factor which is determined by the boundary conditions. In this work we focus on late-time four-point correlators with external scalars and an exchanged field of integer spin-ℓ. The Mellin-Barnes representation makes manifest the analytic structure of boundary correlation functions, providing an analytic expression for the exchange four-point function which is valid for general d and generic scaling dimensions, in particular massive, light and (partially-)massless fields. It moreover naturally identifies boundary correlation functions for generic fields with multi-variable Meijer-G functions. When d = 3 we reproduce existing explicit results available in the literature for external conformally coupled and massless scalars. From these results, assuming the weak breaking of the de Sitter isometries, we extract the corresponding correction to the inflationary three-point function of general external scalars induced by a general spin- ℓ field at leading order in slow roll. These results provide a step towards a more systematic understanding of de Sitter observables at tree level and beyond using Mellin space methods.

We propose a Mellin space approach to the evaluation of late-time momentum-space correlation functions of quantum fields in (d + 1)-dimensional de Sitter space. The Mellin-Barnes representation makes manifest the analytic structure of late-time correlators and, more generally, provides a convenient general d framework for the study of conformal correlators in momentum space. In this work we focus on tree-level correlation functions of general scalars as a prototype, including n-point contact diagrams and 4-point exchanges. For generic scalars, both the contact and exchange diagrams are given by (generalised) Hypergeometric functions, which reduce to existing expressions available in the literature for d = 3 and external scalars which are either simultaneously conformally coupled or massless. This approach can also be used for the perturbative bulk evaluation of momentum space boundary correlators in (d + 1)-dimensional anti-de Sitter space (Witten diagrams).

Clarifying the locality properties of higher-spin gravity is a pressing task, but notoriously difficult due to the absence of a weakly-coupled flat regime. The simplest non-trivial case where this question can be addressed is the quartic self-interaction of the AdS scalar field present in the higher-spin multiplet. We investigate this issue in the context of the holographic duality between the minimal bosonic higher-spin theory on AdS₄ and the free O(N) vector model in three dimensions. In particular, we determine the exact explicit form of the derivative expansion of the bulk scalar quartic vertex. The quartic vertex is obtained from the field theory four-point function of the operator dual to the bulk scalar, by making use of our previous results for the Witten diagrams of higher-spin exchanges. This is facilitated by establishing the conformal block expansions of both the boundary four-point function and the dual bulk Witten diagram amplitudes. We show that the vertex we find satisfies a generalised notion of locality.

In this Letter we provide a complete holographic reconstruction of the cubic couplings in the minimal bosonic higher spin theory in ($d+1$)-dimensional anti– de Sitter space. For this purpose, we also determine the operator-product expansion coefficients of all single-trace conserved currents in the $d$-dimensional free scalar $O(N)$ vector model, and we compute the tree-level three-point Witten diagram amplitudes for a generic cubic interaction of higher spin gauge fields in the metriclike formulation.

In this paper we take the first steps towards bridging the gap between the conformal and cosmological bootstrap programs. We present a simple general relation between tree-level exchanges in anti-de Sitter (AdS) and de Sitter (dS) space with Bunch-Davies intial conditions, providing a complete AdS to dS dictionary at tree-level. This allows us to directly import techniques and results for conformal field theory correlators dual to AdS-Witten diagrams to boundary correlation functions in dS. We apply this relation to extend various indispensable tools from the conformal bootstrap to boundary correlation functions in dS, including Mellin amplitudes and the spectral representation for dS exchanges. We also derive their conformal block decomposition, both in the direct and crossed channels, from their AdS counterparts. The relation between AdS and dS exchanges itself is derived using a recently introduced Mellin-Barnes representation for boundary correlators in momentum space, where (A)dS exchanges are straightforwardly fixed by a combination of factorization, conformal symmetry and boundary conditions.

We describe in more detail the general relation uncovered in our previous work between boundary correlators in de Sitter (dS) and in Euclidean anti-de Sitter (EAdS) space, at any order in perturbation theory. Assuming the Bunch-Davies vacuum at early times, any given diagram contributing to a boundary correlator in dS can be expressed as a linear combination of Witten diagrams for the corresponding process in EAdS, where the relative coefficients are fixed by consistent on-shell factorisation in dS. These coefficients are given by certain sinusoidal factors which account for the change in coefficient of the contact sub-diagrams from EAdS to dS, which we argue encode (perturbative) unitary time evolution in dS. dS boundary correlators with Bunch-Davies initial conditions thus perturbatively have the same singularity structure as their Euclidean AdS counterparts and the identities between them allow to directly import the wealth of techniques, results and understanding from AdS to dS. This includes the Conformal Partial Wave expansion and, by going from single-valued Witten diagrams in EAdS to Lorentzian AdS, the Froissart-Gribov inversion formula. We give a few (among the many possible) applications both at tree and loop level. Such identities between boundary correlators in dS and EAdS are made manifest by the Mellin-Barnes representation of boundary correlators, which we point out is a useful tool in its own right as the analogue of the Fourier transform for the dilatation group. The Mellin-Barnes representation in particular makes manifest factorisation and dispersion formulas for bulk-to-bulk propagators in (EA)dS, which imply Cutkosky cutting rules and dispersion formulas for boundary correlators in (EA)dS. Our results are completely general and in particular apply to any interaction of (integer) spinning fields.