Related papers: Scalar weak gravity bound from full unitarity
We study scenarios where a scalar field has a spatially varying vacuum expectation value such that the total field variation is super-Planckian. We focus on the case where the scalar field controls the coupling of a U(1) gauge field, which…
It is suggested that the Minkowski vacuum of quantum field theories of a large number of fields N would be gravitationally unstable due to strong vacuum energy fluctuations unless an N dependent sub-Planckian ultraviolet momentum cutoff is…
For any quasi de Sitter background, we show that a recently proposed scalar weak gravity conjecture (sWGC) follows from the swampland distance conjecture, together with the covariant entropy bound. While pointing out the limitations of our…
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…
In this paper, we explore positivity bounds for the effective field theory~(EFT) of a single weakly coupled massive vector field. The presence of both mass and spin makes the crossing properties of the amplitudes vastly complicated -- we…
Dynamics of gravity interaction with matter at one-loop level of effective quantum field theory naturally sets the cut-off scale $\Lambda_E$ in a sub-Planckian region through incorporating the gauge coupling constant $\alpha(\Lambda_E)$ and…
The Weak Gravity Conjecture states that in any consistent theory of quantum gravity in the landscape of string theory, the repulsive force mediated by a U(1) gauge field must be stronger than the attractive force of gravity. In this work,…
We consider discretized gravity in 4+2 dimensions compactified on a disk of constant negative curvature. The curvature of the disk avoids the presence of dangerous ultra-light scalar modes but comes also along with a high multiplicity of…
In a scalar-coupled-gravity model, the quadratically divergent counter term appearing in the mass renormalization of the scalar fields must inherit corrections arising out of gravitational interactions. In this work we have explicitly…
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…
A simple example is given of the implementation of the usual method of asymptotic expansions for weak gravitational fields. A scalar, preferred-frame theory of gravitation is considered, but the method is general. Two kinds of asymptotic…
The Weak Gravity Conjecture (WGC) is usually formulated in terms of the stability of extremal black-holes or in terms of long distance Coulomb/Newton potentials. However one can think of other physical processes to compare the relative…
We combine old and new quantum field theoretic arguments to show that any theory of stable or metastable higher spin particles can be coupled to gravity only when the gravity sector has a stringy structure. Metastable higher spin particles,…
In this work we study rescaled effective single scalar field theories, and we confront these with the ACT constraint on the spectral index of the scalar primordial perturbations and the updated BICEP/Planck constraint on the…
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 systematically explore the space of scalar effective field theories (EFTs) consistent with a Lorentz invariant and local S-matrix. To do so we define an EFT classification based on four parameters characterizing 1) the number of…
The non-minimal coupling of scalar fields to gravity has been claimed to violate energy conditions, leading to exotic phenomena such as traversable wormholes, even in classical theories. In this work we adopt the view that the non-minimal…
The cosmological observations provide a strong evidence that there is a positive cosmological constant in our universe and thus the spacetime is asymptotical de Sitter space. The conjecture of gravity as the weakest force in the…
We consider positivity constraints applicable to the Effective Field Theory (EFT) of gravity in arbitrary dimensions. By considering scattering of indefinite initial and final states, we highlight the existence of a gravitational scattering…
We apply positivity bounds directly to a $U(1)$ gauge theory with charged scalars and charged fermions, i.e. QED, minimally coupled to gravity. Assuming that the massless $t$-channel pole may be discarded, we show that the improved…