Weak Gravity Conjecture from Unitarity and Causality

Hamada, Yuta; Noumi, Toshifumi; Shiu, Gary

doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.123.051601

Title: Weak Gravity Conjecture from Unitarity and Causality

Abstract

The weak gravity conjecture states that quantum gravity theories have to contain a charged state with a charge-to-mass ratio bigger than unity. By studying unitarity and causality constraints on higher derivative corrections to the charge-to-mass ratio of extremal back holes, we demonstrate that heavy extremal black holes can play the role of the required charged state under several assumptions. In particular, our argument is applicable when the higher-spin states Reggeizing graviton exchange are subdominant in the photon scattering. It covers (1) theories with light neutral bosons such as dilaton and moduli, and (2) UV completion where the photon and the graviton are accompanied by different sets of Regge states just like open string theory. Our result provides an existence proof of the weak gravity conjecture in a wide class of theories, including generic string theory setups with the dilaton or other moduli stabilized below the string scale.

Authors:: Hamada, Yuta; Noumi, Toshifumi; Shiu, Gary

Publication Date:: Wed Jul 31 00:00:00 EDT 2019

Research Org.:: Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison, WI (United States)

Sponsoring Org.:: USDOE Office of Science (SC)

OSTI Identifier:: 1545949

Alternate Identifier(s):: OSTI ID: 1612738

Grant/Contract Number:: SC0017647

Resource Type:: Published Article

Journal Name:: Physical Review Letters

Additional Journal Information:: Journal Name: Physical Review Letters Journal Volume: 123 Journal Issue: 5; Journal ID: ISSN 0031-9007

Publisher:: American Physical Society

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

Subject:: 79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS; Physics; Effective field theory; Quantum aspects of black holes; Scattering amplitudes; String phenomenology

Citation Formats


                    Hamada, Yuta, Noumi, Toshifumi, and Shiu, Gary. Weak Gravity Conjecture from Unitarity and Causality.  United States: N. p., 2019. 
Web.  doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.123.051601.

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                    Hamada, Yuta, Noumi, Toshifumi, & Shiu, Gary. Weak Gravity Conjecture from Unitarity and Causality.  United States.  https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.123.051601

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                    Hamada, Yuta, Noumi, Toshifumi, and Shiu, Gary. Wed .  
"Weak Gravity Conjecture from Unitarity and Causality".  United States.  https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.123.051601.

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@article{osti_1545949,

  title        = {Weak Gravity Conjecture from Unitarity and Causality},

  author       = {Hamada, Yuta and Noumi, Toshifumi and Shiu, Gary},

  abstractNote = {The weak gravity conjecture states that quantum gravity theories have to contain a charged state with a charge-to-mass ratio bigger than unity. By studying unitarity and causality constraints on higher derivative corrections to the charge-to-mass ratio of extremal back holes, we demonstrate that heavy extremal black holes can play the role of the required charged state under several assumptions. In particular, our argument is applicable when the higher-spin states Reggeizing graviton exchange are subdominant in the photon scattering. It covers (1) theories with light neutral bosons such as dilaton and moduli, and (2) UV completion where the photon and the graviton are accompanied by different sets of Regge states just like open string theory. Our result provides an existence proof of the weak gravity conjecture in a wide class of theories, including generic string theory setups with the dilaton or other moduli stabilized below the string scale.},

  doi          = {10.1103/PhysRevLett.123.051601},

  journal      = {Physical Review Letters},

  number       = 5,

  volume       = 123,

  place        = {United States},

  year         = {Wed Jul 31 00:00:00 EDT 2019},

  month        = {Wed Jul 31 00:00:00 EDT 2019}

}

Copy to clipboard

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Title: Weak Gravity Conjecture from Unitarity and Causality

Abstract

Citation Formats

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