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Title: Riding on irrelevant operators

Journal Article · · Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics
 [1];  [1]
  1. Case Western Reserve Univ., Cleveland, OH (United States). CERCA/Department of Physics; Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, Waterloo, ON (Canada)

We investigate the stability of a class of derivative theories known as P(X) and Galileons against corrections generated by quantum effects. We use an exact renormalisation group approach to argue that these theories are stable under quantum corrections at all loops in regions where the kinetic term is large compared to the strong coupling scale. This is the regime of interest for screening or Vainshtein mechanisms, and in in ationary models that rely on large kinetic terms. Next, we clarify the role played by the symmetries. While symmetries protect the form of the quantum corrections, theories equipped with more symmetries do not necessarily have a broader range of scales for which they are valid. We show this by deriving explicitly the regime of validity of the classical solutions for P(X) theories including Dirac- Born-Infeld (DBI) models, both in generic and for specific background field configurations. Indeed, we find that despite the existence of an additional symmetry, the DBI effective field theory has a regime of validity similar to an arbitrary P(X) theory. We explore the implications of our results for both early and late universe contexts. Conversely, when applied to static and spherical screening mechanisms, we deduce that the regime of validity of typical power-law P(X) theories is much larger than that of DBI.

Research Organization:
Case Western Reserve Univ., Cleveland, OH (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE
Grant/Contract Number:
SC0009946
OSTI ID:
1454782
Journal Information:
Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, Vol. 2014, Issue 11; ISSN 1475-7516
Publisher:
Institute of Physics (IOP)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 66 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (13)

EFT of interacting spin-2 fields journal January 2020
Positivity bounds for massive spin-1 and spin-2 fields journal March 2019
Improved positivity bounds and massive gravity journal April 2018
On couplings to matter in massive (bi-)gravity journal January 2015
How to avoid a swift kick in the chameleons journal March 2016
Two-body potential of Vainshtein screened theories journal July 2019
Spin-2 fields and the weak gravity conjecture journal November 2019
Dynamical system analysis of hybrid metric-Palatini cosmologies journal September 2015
Spin-2 fields and the weak gravity conjecture text January 2019
Features and New Physical Scales in Primordial Observables: Theory and Observation text January 2015
Massive Galileon Positivity Bounds text January 2017
The two-body potential of Vainshtein screened theories text January 2019
EFT of Interacting Spin-2 Fields text January 2019

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