English

Positivity Bounds for Scalar Theories

High Energy Physics - Theory 2017-11-01 v1 Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology High Energy Physics - Phenomenology

Abstract

Assuming the existence of a local, analytic, unitary UV completion in a Poincar\'{e} invariant scalar field theory with a mass gap, we derive an infinite number of positivity requirements using the known properties of the amplitude at and away from the forward scattering limit. These take the form of bounds on combinations of the pole subtracted scattering amplitude and its derivatives. In turn, these positivity requirements act as constraints on the operator coefficients in the low energy effective theory. For certain theories these constraints can be used to place an upper bound on the mass of the next lightest state that must lie beyond the low energy effective theory if such a UV completion is to ever exist.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1702.06134,
  title  = {Positivity Bounds for Scalar Theories},
  author = {Claudia de Rham and Scott Melville and Andrew J. Tolley and Shuang-Yong Zhou},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1702.06134},
  year   = {2017}
}

Comments

5 pages

R2 v1 2026-06-22T18:23:24.059Z