A Bit Rate Bound on Superluminal Communication

We study semi-classical communication in positivity-violating k-essence scalar field theories, with superluminal modes propagating on a rolling background. The self-interactions due to the non-linear nature of these theories pose a constraint on the rate of superluminal information transfer. We derive a novel bit rate bound on superluminal communication within a conceptual model, to which a general class of k-essence theories naturally reduces. Our result implies the possibility that, even if these positivity-violating k-essence theories may not possess a maximal information propagation speed, there is nevertheless an upper bound on the rate of information transfer.