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Emergence of Weak Coupling at Large Distance in Quantum Gravity
Ben Heidenreich1, Matthew Reece2, Tom Rudelius3
1Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada N2L 2Y5.
Physical Review Letters
|August 18, 2018
Summary
The Ooguri-Vafa swampland conjectures are supported by a new viewpoint: common strong coupling scales for gravity and scalar fields naturally lead to exponential particle mass reduction in quantum gravity theories. This implies super-Planckian field excursions require new physics beyond effective field theory.
Area of Science:
- Theoretical Physics
- Quantum Gravity
- String Theory
Background:
- The Ooguri-Vafa swampland conjectures propose that quantum gravity theories exhibit specific behaviors in scalar field space.
- These conjectures suggest a tower of particles becomes lighter exponentially with field-space distance.
Purpose of the Study:
- To provide a novel viewpoint on the Ooguri-Vafa swampland conjectures.
- To explore the implications of common strong coupling scales for gravity and scalar fields.
Main Methods:
- Assuming a tower of states becomes light near a field-space point.
- Demanding loop corrections drive gravity and scalar fields to strong coupling at a common energy scale.
Main Results:
- The exponential lightening of particles in field-space distance follows automatically under the stated assumptions.
- A common strong-coupling scale implies super-Planckian scalar field evolution leads to significant average particle mass changes.
Conclusions:
- The study supports the Ooguri-Vafa swampland conjectures from a new perspective.
- Results suggest that super-Planckian field excursions cannot be described by a single effective field theory, aligning with the weak gravity conjecture.
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