I am reading the book Scattering Amplitudes in Gauge Theory and Gravity from Elvang and Huang. In section 2.6 they seem to suggest that the mass-dimension of the kinematic part of the amplitude is in 1-to-1 correspondence to the number of derivatives in the interaction term in the Lagrangian. For example, for the 3-gluon amplitude
A3(g−1g−2g+3)=g⟨12⟩3⟨13⟩⟨23⟩
has a kinetic part with mass-dimension 1, which means it is compatible with the AA∂A interaction term in TrFμνFμν. Similarly they argue that the amplitude
A3(g−1g−2g+3)=g′[13][23][12]3
has mass-dimension -1, and thus must come from g′AA∂◻A (and is thus nonlocal and unphysical). Later on a similar claim is made about the amplitude
A3(g−1g−2g−3)=a⟨12⟩⟨13⟩⟨23⟩
coming from an interaction term with three derivatives (∂A∂A∂A)
This seems intuitive, but it also seems to contradict an earlier result from QED with massless fermions discussed in section 2.4. In that section we derive the 3-particle amplitude
A3(f−ˉf+γ−)=˜e⟨13⟩2⟨12⟩.
By the same logic you would expect this to come from a Lagrangian interaction term with one derivative, but in fact it seems to arise from the γμˉΨAμΨ interaction term, which does not have any derivatives.
Can someone clarify this for me?