DOE PAGES title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: The Weak Gravity Conjecture in three dimensions

Abstract

We study weakly coupled U(1) theories in AdS3, their associated charged BTZ solutions, and their charged spectra. We find that modular invariance of the holographic dual two-dimensional CFT and compactness of the gauge group together imply the existence of charged operators with conformal dimension significantly below the black hole threshold. We regard this as a form of the Weak Gravity Conjecture (WGC) in three dimensions. We also explore the constraints posed by modular invariance on a particular discrete $$\mathbb{Z}$$ N symmetry which arises in our discussion. In this case, modular invariance does not guarantee the existence of light $$\mathbb{Z}$$ N -charged states. We also highlight the differences between our discussion and the usual heuristic arguments for the WGC based on black hole remnants.

Authors:
 [1];  [2];  [2]
  1. Univ. Autónoma de Madrid, Madrid (Spain); Inst. de Física Teórica IFT-UAM/CSIC
  2. Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI (United States). Dept. of Physics; Hong Kong Univ. of Science and Technology, Hong Kong (China). Dept. of Physics & Inst. for Advanced Study
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison, WI (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE Office of Science (SC)
OSTI Identifier:
1533258
Grant/Contract Number:  
FG02-95ER40896
Resource Type:
Accepted Manuscript
Journal Name:
Journal of High Energy Physics (Online)
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Name: Journal of High Energy Physics (Online); Journal Volume: 2016; Journal Issue: 10; Journal ID: ISSN 1029-8479
Publisher:
Springer Berlin
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS; physics; AdS-CFT Correspondence; black holes in String Theory; discrete symmetries; gauge symmetry

Citation Formats

Montero, Miguel, Shiu, Gary, and Soler, Pablo. The Weak Gravity Conjecture in three dimensions. United States: N. p., 2016. Web. doi:10.1007/jhep10(2016)159.
Montero, Miguel, Shiu, Gary, & Soler, Pablo. The Weak Gravity Conjecture in three dimensions. United States. https://doi.org/10.1007/jhep10(2016)159
Montero, Miguel, Shiu, Gary, and Soler, Pablo. Fri . "The Weak Gravity Conjecture in three dimensions". United States. https://doi.org/10.1007/jhep10(2016)159. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1533258.
@article{osti_1533258,
title = {The Weak Gravity Conjecture in three dimensions},
author = {Montero, Miguel and Shiu, Gary and Soler, Pablo},
abstractNote = {We study weakly coupled U(1) theories in AdS3, their associated charged BTZ solutions, and their charged spectra. We find that modular invariance of the holographic dual two-dimensional CFT and compactness of the gauge group together imply the existence of charged operators with conformal dimension significantly below the black hole threshold. We regard this as a form of the Weak Gravity Conjecture (WGC) in three dimensions. We also explore the constraints posed by modular invariance on a particular discrete $\mathbb{Z}$ N symmetry which arises in our discussion. In this case, modular invariance does not guarantee the existence of light $\mathbb{Z}$ N -charged states. We also highlight the differences between our discussion and the usual heuristic arguments for the WGC based on black hole remnants.},
doi = {10.1007/jhep10(2016)159},
journal = {Journal of High Energy Physics (Online)},
number = 10,
volume = 2016,
place = {United States},
year = {Fri Oct 28 00:00:00 EDT 2016},
month = {Fri Oct 28 00:00:00 EDT 2016}
}

Journal Article:
Free Publicly Available Full Text
Publisher's Version of Record

Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 110 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

Save / Share:

Works referenced in this record:

Chiral anomalies and AdS/CMT in two dimensions
text, January 2010


The N = 2 $$ \mathcal{N}=2 $$ superconformal bootstrap
journal, March 2016

  • Beem, Christopher; Lemos, Madalena; Liendo, Pedro
  • Journal of High Energy Physics, Vol. 2016, Issue 3
  • DOI: 10.1007/JHEP03(2016)183

Aligned natural inflation with modulations
journal, August 2016


Phase transition between the BTZ black hole and AdS space
journal, July 2006


Quark confinement and topology of gauge theories
journal, March 1977


Warping the Weak Gravity Conjecture
text, January 2015


Constraints on axion inflation from the weak gravity conjecture
journal, September 2015


Winding out of the Swamp: Evading the weak gravity conjecture with F -term winding inflation?
journal, September 2015


Neutrino Majorana masses from string theory instanton effects
journal, March 2007


The Black Hole in Three Dimensional Space Time
text, January 1992


On natural inflation and moduli stabilisation in string theory
journal, October 2015


Naturalness and the Weak Gravity Conjecture
text, January 2014


A note on Gauge Theories Coupled to Gravity
text, January 2006


Planckian Axions and the Weak Gravity Conjecture
text, January 2015


Anti de Sitter space and holography
journal, January 1998


Hawking radiation from a (2 + 1)-dimensional black hole
journal, February 1994


Quantum Hair on Black Holes
text, January 1992


Natural Inflation and Quantum Gravity
text, January 2014


Natural Inflation and Quantum Gravity
journal, April 2015


On the space of elliptic genera
text, January 2008


String-Math 2013
book, January 2014

  • Donagi, Ron; Douglas, Michael R.; Kamenova, Ljudmila
  • Proceedings of Symposia in Pure Mathematics
  • DOI: 10.1090/pspum/088/01461

Gravity and strings
journal, December 2015


Bounds for state degeneracies in 2D conformal field theory
journal, August 2011

  • Hellerman, Simeon; Schmidt-Colinet, Cornelius
  • Journal of High Energy Physics, Vol. 2011, Issue 8
  • DOI: 10.1007/JHEP08(2011)127

Transplanckian axions !?
text, January 2015


On axionic field ranges, loopholes and the weak gravity conjecture
journal, April 2016

  • Brown, Jon; Cottrell, William; Shiu, Gary
  • Journal of High Energy Physics, Vol. 2016, Issue 4
  • DOI: 10.1007/JHEP04(2016)017

String theory
journal, September 1990


Stringy Instantons and Quiver Gauge Theories
text, January 2006


Quantum hair on black holes
journal, July 1992


Winding out of the Swamp: Evading the Weak Gravity Conjecture with F-term Winding Inflation?
preprint, January 2015


A universal inequality for CFT and quantum gravity
journal, August 2011


Relaxion monodromy and the Weak Gravity Conjecture
journal, April 2016

  • Ibáñez, L. E.; Montero, M.; Uranga, A. M.
  • Journal of High Energy Physics, Vol. 2016, Issue 4
  • DOI: 10.1007/JHEP04(2016)020

On the Possibility of Large Axion Moduli Spaces
text, January 2014


Weak gravity strongly constrains large-field axion inflation
journal, December 2015

  • Heidenreich, Ben; Reece, Matthew; Rudelius, Tom
  • Journal of High Energy Physics, Vol. 2015, Issue 12
  • DOI: 10.1007/JHEP12(2015)108

Warping the Weak Gravity Conjecture
journal, August 2016


Comments on the N = 2,3,4 superconformal algebras in two dimensions
journal, January 1987


Thermodynamics of black holes in anti-de Sitter space
journal, December 1983

  • Hawking, S. W.; Page, Don N.
  • Communications in Mathematical Physics, Vol. 87, Issue 4
  • DOI: 10.1007/BF01208266

String theory
journal, July 2009


Backreacted axion field ranges in string theory
journal, August 2016


Axion Monodromy and the Weak Gravity Conjecture
text, January 2015

  • Hebecker, Arthur; Rompineve, Fabrizio; Westphal, Alexander
  • Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron, DESY, Hamburg
  • DOI: 10.3204/pubdb-2015-05910

Naturalness and the Weak Gravity Conjecture
journal, July 2014


Universal bounds on charged states in 2d CFT and 3d gravity
journal, August 2016

  • Benjamin, Nathan; Dyer, Ethan; Fitzpatrick, A. Liam
  • Journal of High Energy Physics, Vol. 2016, Issue 8
  • DOI: 10.1007/JHEP08(2016)041

Quantum Hair on Black Holes
text, January 1992


Black hole in three-dimensional spacetime
journal, September 1992


A note on gauge theories coupled to gravity
journal, September 2006


Conformal field theory, (2 + 1)-dimensional gravity and the BTZ black hole
journal, June 2005


Axion monodromy and the weak gravity conjecture
journal, April 2016

  • Hebecker, Arthur; Rompineve, Fabrizio; Westphal, Alexander
  • Journal of High Energy Physics, Vol. 2016, Issue 4
  • DOI: 10.1007/JHEP04(2016)157

R4 couplings in M- and type II theories on Calabi-Yau spaces
journal, December 1997


The (2 + 1)-dimensional black hole
journal, December 1995


Fencing in the Swampland: Quantum Gravity Constraints on Large Field Inflation
preprint, January 2015


Large-field inflation with multiple axions and the weak gravity conjecture
journal, February 2016


Anti De Sitter Space And Holography
text, January 1998


Stringy instantons and quiver gauge theories
journal, May 2007


Three-dimensional Einstein gravity: Dynamics of flat space
journal, January 1984


Fencing in the swampland: quantum gravity constraints on large field inflation
journal, October 2015

  • Brown, Jon; Cottrell, William; Shiu, Gary
  • Journal of High Energy Physics, Vol. 2015, Issue 10
  • DOI: 10.1007/JHEP10(2015)023

A Universal Inequality for CFT and Quantum Gravity
text, January 2009


The string landscape, black holes and gravity as the weakest force
journal, June 2007


Transplanckian axions!?
journal, August 2015

  • Montero, Miguel; Uranga, Angel M.; Valenzuela, Irene
  • Journal of High Energy Physics, Vol. 2015, Issue 8
  • DOI: 10.1007/JHEP08(2015)032

Axion monodromy and the weak gravity conjecture
text, January 2016

  • Hebecker, Arthur; Rompineve, Fabrizio; Westphal, Alexander
  • Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron, DESY, Hamburg
  • DOI: 10.3204/pubdb-2016-01923

Weak Gravity Strongly Constrains Large-Field Axion Inflation
text, January 2015


On the possibility of large axion moduli spaces
journal, April 2015


Sharpening the weak gravity conjecture with dimensional reduction
journal, February 2016

  • Heidenreich, Ben; Reece, Matthew; Rudelius, Tom
  • Journal of High Energy Physics, Vol. 2016, Issue 2
  • DOI: 10.1007/JHEP02(2016)140

Wormholes, emergent gauge fields, and the weak gravity conjecture
journal, January 2016


Planckian axions and the Weak Gravity Conjecture
journal, January 2016

  • Bachlechner, Thomas C.; Long, Cody; McAllister, Liam
  • Journal of High Energy Physics, Vol. 2016, Issue 1
  • DOI: 10.1007/JHEP01(2016)091

Winding out of the Swamp: Evading the Weak Gravity Conjecture with F-term Winding Inflation?
preprint, January 2015


Poincare Series, 3D Gravity and CFT Spectroscopy
text, January 2014


Modulated natural inflation
journal, February 2016


The Chern-Simons term versus the monopole
journal, December 1989


Operator content of two-dimensional conformally invariant theories
journal, January 1986


Introduction
book, June 1988


( 2 + 1 ) -Dimensional Charged Black Hole in Topologically Massive Electrodynamics
journal, July 2005


Modulated Natural Inflation
text, January 2015


String theory
text, January 2020


Subleading effects and the field range in axion inflation
journal, April 2016

  • Parameswaran, Susha; Tasinato, Gianmassimo; Zavala, Ivonne
  • Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, Vol. 2016, Issue 04
  • DOI: 10.1088/1475-7516/2016/04/008

Discrete gauge symmetries in D-brane models
text, January 2011


Poincaré series, 3D gravity and CFT spectroscopy
journal, February 2015

  • Keller, Christoph A.; Maloney, Alexander
  • Journal of High Energy Physics, Vol. 2015, Issue 2
  • DOI: 10.1007/JHEP02(2015)080

Spacetime instanton corrections in 4D string vacua: The seesaw mechanism for D-brane models
journal, May 2007


Evidence for an electrifying violation of cosmic censorship
journal, September 2016


Works referencing / citing this record:

A Tower Weak Gravity Conjecture from Infrared Consistency
text, January 2018


Racing through the swampland: de Sitter uplift vs. weak gravity
journal, September 2018


Pole N-flation
text, January 2018


Backreaction issues in axion monodromy and Minkowski 4-forms
journal, June 2017


Constraining Neutrino Masses, the Cosmological Constant and BSM Physics from the Weak Gravity Conjecture
text, January 2017


A Strong Scalar Weak Gravity Conjecture and Some Implications
text, January 2019


The Weak Gravity Conjecture and emergence from an ultraviolet cutoff
journal, April 2018


Super-Planckian spatial field variations and quantum gravity
journal, January 2017


Relating the scalar weak gravity conjecture and the swampland distance conjecture for an accelerating universe
journal, October 2019


Anomalies and bounds on charged operators
journal, July 2019


Racing through the swampland: de Sitter uplift vs weak gravity
text, January 2018


The Swampland: Introduction and Review
journal, April 2019


Supersymmetry breaking warped throats and the weak gravity conjecture
journal, April 2019

  • Buratti, Ginevra; García-Valdecasas, Eduardo; Uranga, Angel M.
  • Journal of High Energy Physics, Vol. 2019, Issue 4
  • DOI: 10.1007/jhep04(2019)111

Pole N-flation
journal, February 2019

  • Dias, Mafalda; Frazer, Jonathan; Retolaza, Ander
  • Journal of High Energy Physics, Vol. 2019, Issue 2
  • DOI: 10.1007/jhep02(2019)120

Charged structure constants from modularity
text, January 2017


Complexity is simple!
journal, February 2018

  • Cottrell, William; Montero, Miguel
  • Journal of High Energy Physics, Vol. 2018, Issue 2
  • DOI: 10.1007/jhep02(2018)039

Searching the landscape of flux vacua with genetic algorithms
text, January 2019

  • Cole, A.; Schachner, Andreas; Shiu, G.
  • Apollo - University of Cambridge Repository
  • DOI: 10.17863/cam.79204

Transplanckian Censorship and Global Cosmic Strings
text, January 2017


Weak Gravity Conjecture and extremal black holes
journal, June 2019

  • Cottrell, William; Shiu, Gary; Soler, Pablo
  • Science China Physics, Mechanics & Astronomy, Vol. 62, Issue 11
  • DOI: 10.1007/s11433-019-9406-2

Tensionless Strings and the Weak Gravity Conjecture
text, January 2018


Pole N-flation
text, January 2019

  • Dias, Mafalda; Frazer, Jonathan; Retolaza Diez, Ander
  • Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron, DESY, Hamburg
  • DOI: 10.3204/pubdb-2019-01976

Weak Gravity Conjecture and Extremal Black Holes
preprint, January 2016


The Swampland: Introduction and Review
text, January 2019


Racing through the swampland: de Sitter uplift vs. weak gravity
text, January 2018


Weak Gravity Conjecture From Low Energy Observers' Perspective
journal, August 2018


Infinite Distances in Field Space and Massless Towers of States
text, January 2018


A Tower Weak Gravity Conjecture from Infrared Consistency
journal, May 2018

  • Andriolo, Stefano; Junghans, Daniel; Noumi, Toshifumi
  • Fortschritte der Physik, Vol. 66, Issue 5
  • DOI: 10.1002/prop.201800020

Large field ranges from aligned and misaligned winding
journal, March 2019

  • Hebecker, Arthur; Junghans, Daniel; Schachner, Andreas
  • Journal of High Energy Physics, Vol. 2019, Issue 3
  • DOI: 10.1007/jhep03(2019)192

Evidence for a Lattice Weak Gravity Conjecture
text, January 2016


Supersymmetry Breaking Warped Throats and the Weak Gravity Conjecture
text, January 2018