Related papers: A cautionary case of casual causality
Chiral effective field theory (EFT) predictions are necessarily truncated at some order in the EFT expansion, which induces an error that must be quantified for robust statistical comparisons to experiment. In previous work, a Bayesian…
Gravitational wave `echoes' during black-hole merging events have been advocated as possible signals of modifications to gravity in the strong-field (but semiclassical) regime. In these proposals the observable effect comes entirely from…
We study causality in gravitational systems beyond the classical limit. Using on-shell methods, we consider the one-loop corrections from charged particles to the photon energy-momentum tensor - the self-stress - that controls the quantum…
Fluctuations around a non-trivial solution of Born-Infeld theory have a limiting speed given not by the Einstein metric but the Boillat metric. The Boillat metric is S-duality invariant and conformal to the open string metric. It also…
We derive the first positivity bounds for low-energy Effective Field Theories (EFTs) that are not invariant under Lorentz boosts. "Positivity bounds" are the low-energy manifestation of certain fundamental properties in the UV -- to date…
I review the effective field theory (EFT) description of gravitating compact objects. The focus is on kinematic regimes where gravity is perturbative, in particular the adiabatic inspiral phase relevant to gravitational wave detection. For…
We present a general perturbative effective field theory (EFT) description of galaxy shape correlations, which are commonly known as intrinsic alignments. This rigorous approach extends current analytical modelling strategies in that it…
Modified gravity is often approached in the context of effective-field theory (EFT), with the view that the EFT corrections permit a more desirable theory. In this paper, we posit that this should extend to the causal structure of curved…
Effective field theory (EFT) provides a systematic framework to describe possible deviations from general relativity through higher-curvature corrections to the gravitational action, capturing low-energy effects of an underlying fundamental…
We show that, contrary to common belief, the propagation of a spin-2 field in an electromagnetic background is {\em causal}. The proof will be given in the Fierz formalism which, as we shall see, is free of the ambiguity present in the more…
We investigate limitations of causality arguments from flat-spacetime amplitudes, based on the eikonal limit of gravitational scattering, to place constraints on modified gravity. We show that causality constraints are only valid in the…
We show how uncertainty in the causal structure of field theory is essentially inevitable when one includes quantum gravity. This includes the fact that lightcones are ill-defined in such a theory. This effect is small in the effective…
Effective Field Theories (EFTs) constructed as derivative expansions in powers of momentum, in the spirit of Chiral Perturbation Theory (ChPT), are a controllable approximation to strong dynamics as long as the energy of the interacting…
We demonstrate that the emergence of a curved spacetime ``effective Lorentzian geometry'' is a common and generic result of linearizing a field theory around some non-trivial background. This investigation is motivated by considering the…
We study the Quantum Focussing Conjecture (QFC) in curved spacetime. Noting that quantum corrections from integrating out massive fields generally induce a Gauss-Bonnet term, we study Einstein-Hilbert-Gauss-Bonnet gravity and show for $d\ge…
In the effective field theory approach to gravity, the Lagrangian density for general relativity is supplemented by generally covariant terms of higher order in the Riemann tensor and its derivatives. At face value, these terms will result…
In a previous paper, the authors with Ann Nelson proposed that the UV and IR applicability of effective quantum field theories should be constrained by requiring that strong gravitational effects are nowhere encountered in a theory's domain…
A massive, nonrelativistic scalar field in an expanding spacetime is usually approximated by a pressureless perfect fluid, which leads to the standard conclusion that such a field can play the role of cold dark matter. In this paper, we…
The existence of gravitational radiation is a natural prediction of any relativistic description of the gravitational interaction. In this chapter, we focus on gravitational waves, as predicted by Einstein's general theory of relativity.…
Theoretical data obtained from physically sensible field and string theory models suggest that gravitational Effective Field Theories (EFTs) live on islands that are tiny compared to current general bounds determined from unitarity,…