Related papers: The Weak Gravity Conjecture and Scalar Fields
Scalar-tensor theories of gravity generally violate the strong equivalence principle, namely compact objects have a suppressed coupling to the scalar force, causing them to fall slower. A black hole is the extreme example where such a…
The mild form of the Weak Gravity Conjecture states that quantum or higher-derivative corrections should decrease the mass of large extremal charged black holes at fixed charge. This allows extremal black holes to decay, unless protected by…
Scalar fields with inverse power-law effective potentials may provide a negative pressure component to the energy density of the universe today, as required by cosmological observations. In order to be cosmologically relevant today, the…
We consider the swampland distance and de Sitter conjectures, of respective order one parameters $\lambda$ and $c$. Inspired by the recent Trans-Planckian Censorship conjecture (TCC), we propose a generalization of the distance conjecture,…
We derive constraints on scalar field theories coupled to gravity by using recently developed positivity bounds in the presence of gravity. It is found that a canonically-normalized real scalar cannot have an arbitrarily flat potential…
We examine the minimal constraints imposed by the Weak Gravity Conjecture (WGC) on the particle spectrum of a quantum gravity theory. Towers of super-extremal states have previously been argued to be required for consistency of the WGC…
The weak field limit of scalar tensor theories of gravity is discussed in view of conformal transformations. Specifically, we consider how physical quantities, like gravitational potentials derived in the Newtonian approximation for the…
Recently, it has been argued that application of the Weak Gravity Conjecture (WGC) to spin-2 fields implies a universal upper bound on the cutoff of the effective theory for a single spin-2 field. We point out here that these arguments are…
The Distance Conjecture of Ooguri and Vafa holds that any infinite-distance limit in the moduli space of a quantum gravity theory must be accompanied by a tower of exponentially light particles, which places tight constraints on the…
We investigate the weak-field regime of generalized hybrid metric-Palatini theories, described by a generic function \(f(R,\mathcal{R})\), where \(R\) is the metric Ricci scalar and \(\mathcal{R}\) is constructed from an independent…
We consider effective theories with massive fields that have spins larger than or equal to two. We conjecture a universal cutoff scale on any such theory that depends on the lightest mass of such fields. This cutoff corresponds to the mass…
We derive new positivity bounds for scattering amplitudes in theories with a massless graviton in the spectrum in four spacetime dimensions, of relevance for the weak gravity conjecture and modified gravity theories. The bounds imply that…
We prove that higher-dimension operators contribute positively to the entropy of a thermodynamically stable black hole at fixed mass and charge. Our results apply whenever the dominant corrections originate at tree level from quantum field…
We consider scalar-tensor theories of gravity in an accelerating universe. The equations for the background evolution and the perturbations are given in full generality for any parametrization of the Lagrangian, and we stress that apparent…
We investigate the behavior of the Weak Gravity Conjecture (WGC) under toroidal compactification and RG flows, finding evidence that WGC bounds for single photons become weaker in the infrared. By contrast, we find that a photon satisfying…
The Axion Weak Gravity Conjecture provides one of the most effective quantum gravity tools for constraining particle physics and cosmology, but it has long been thought of as a slightly fuzzy statement: given an axion with decay constant…
Strong (sublattice or tower) formulations of the Weak Gravity Conjecture (WGC) imply that, if a weakly coupled gauge theory exists, a tower of charged particles drives the theory to strong coupling at an ultraviolet scale well below the…
The Weak Gravity Conjecture (WGC) posits that gravity must be the weakest force in any consistent theory of quantum gravity. Originally formulated to constrain the landscape of effective field theories arising from string theory, the WGC…
The double field theory action in the flux formulation is dimensionally reduced on a Calabi-Yau three-fold equipped with non-vanishing type IIB geometric and non-geometric fluxes. First, we rewrite the metric-dependent reduced DFT action in…
The Swampland Distance Conjecture (SDC) restricts the geodesic distances that scalars can traverse in effective field theories as they approach points at infinite distance in moduli space. We propose that, when applied to the subset of…