Related papers: Axion species scale and axion weak gravity conject…
We analyze a large class of four-dimensional $\mathcal{N}=1$ low-energy realizations of the axiverse satisfying various quantum gravity constraints. We propose a novel upper bound on the ultimate UV cutoff of the effective theory, namely…
The species scale $\Lambda_s\leq M_{pl}$ serves as a UV cutoff in the gravitational sector of an EFT and can depend on the moduli of the theory as the spectrum of the theory varies. We argue that the dependence of the species scale…
The concept of the species scale as the quantum gravity cut-off has been recently emphasised in the context of the Swampland program. Along these lines, we continue the quest for a precise understanding of its role within effective field…
The species scale is a field-dependent UV cut-off for any effective field theory weakly coupled to gravity. In this letter we show that, in the context of inflationary cosmology, a detection of primordial gravitational waves will set an…
We study the Weak Gravity Conjecture in the presence of scalar fields. The Weak Gravity Conjecture is a consistency condition for a theory of quantum gravity asserting that for a U(1) gauge field, there is a particle charged under this…
Recently the notion that quantum gravity effects could manifest at scales much lower than the Planck scale has seen an intense Swamplandish revival. Dozens of works have explored how the so-called species scale -- at which an effective…
We study infinite-distance limits in the moduli space of perturbative string vacua. The remarkable interplay of string dualities seems to determine a highly non-trivial dichotomy, summarized by the emergent string conjecture, by which in…
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…
We provide a moduli-dependent definition of species scale in quantum gravity based on black hole arguments. Concretely, it is derived from of a lower bound on the entropy of extremal black holes with higher curvature corrections, which…
The mass of the axion and its decay rate are known to depend only on the scale of Peccei-Quinn symmetry breaking, which is constrained by astrophysics and cosmology to be between $10^9$ and $10^{12}$ GeV. We propose a new mechanism such…
The species scale provides an upper bound for the ultraviolet cutoff of effective theories of gravity coupled to a number of light particle species. We point out that modular invariant (super-)potentials provide a simple and computable…
We revisit the Scalar Weak Gravity Conjecture and investigate the possibility to impose that scalar interactions dominate over gravitational ones. More precisely, we look for consequences of assuming that, for leading scalar interactions,…
Rather general considerations of the string theory landscape imply a mild statistical draw towards large soft SUSY breaking terms tempered by the requirement of proper electroweak symmetry breaking where SUSY contributions to the weak scale…
Axions with broken discrete shift symmetry (axion monodromy) have recently played a central role both in the discussion of inflation and the `relaxion' approach to the hierarchy problem. We suggest a very minimalist way to constrain such…
Evidence is mounting that natural supersymmetry at the weak scale is not realized in nature. On the other hand, string theory suggests that supersymmetry may be present at some energy scale, and gauge coupling unification implies that that…
We analyze causality and unitarity constraints in graviton scattering amplitudes, aiming to establish new bounds on theories with $U(1)$-gravitational anomalies, such as axion models or strongly-coupled gauge theories. For this purpose, we…
Common features of known quantum gravity theories may hint at the general nature of quantum gravity. The absence of continuous global symmetries is one such feature. This inspired the Weak Gravity Conjecture, which bounds masses of charged…
We propose a new version of the scalar Weak Gravity Conjecture (WGC) which would apply to any scalar field coupled to quantum gravity. For a single scalar it is given by the differential constraint $V''\leq…
We explore the prospects for bounding the weak scale using the weak gravity conjecture (WGC), addressing the hierarchy problem by violating the expectations of effective field theory. Building on earlier work by Cheung and Remmen, we…
Weak gravity conjecture can be formulated as a statement that gravity must be the weakest force, compared to the other interactions in low energy effective field theory (EFT). Several arguments in favor of this statement were presented from…