English

Positivity Bounds for Massive Spin-1 and Spin-2 Fields

High Energy Physics - Theory 2019-04-03 v2 Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology High Energy Physics - Phenomenology

Abstract

We apply the recently developed positivity bounds for particles with spin, applied away from the forward limit, to the low energy effective theories of massive spin-1 and spin-2 theories. For spin-1 theories, we consider the generic Proca EFT which arises at low energies from a heavy Higgs mechanism, and the special case of a charged Galileon for which the EFT is reorganized by the Galileon symmetry. For spin-2, we consider generic Λ5\Lambda_5 massive gravity theories and the special `ghost-free' Λ3\Lambda_3 theories. Remarkably we find that at the level of 2-2 scattering, the positivity bounds applied to Λ5\Lambda_5 massive gravity theories impose the special tunings which generate the Λ3\Lambda_3 structure. For Λ3\Lambda_3 massive gravity theories, the island of positivity derived in the forward limit appears relatively stable against further bounds.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1804.10624,
  title  = {Positivity Bounds for Massive Spin-1 and Spin-2 Fields},
  author = {Claudia de Rham and Scott Melville and Andrew J. Tolley and Shuang-Yong Zhou},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1804.10624},
  year   = {2019}
}

Comments

38 pages, 2 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-23T01:38:28.961Z