Weak separation, positivity and extremal Yangian invariants
We classify all positive $n$-particle N k MHV Yangian invariants in $N =$ 4 YangMills theory with $n = 5k$, which we call extremal because none exist for $n > 5k$. We show that this problem is equivalent to that of enumerating plane cactus graphs with k pentagons. We use the known solution of that problem to provide an exact expression for the number of cyclic classes of such invariants for any $k$, and a simple rule for writing them down explicitly. We provide an alternative (but equivalent) classification by showing that a product of $k$ five-brackets with disjoint sets of indices is a positive Yangian invariant if and only if the sets are all weakly separated.