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QED positivity bounds

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arxiv 2012.05798 v1 pith:2BEEAETS submitted 2020-12-10 hep-th

QED positivity bounds

classification hep-th
keywords boundspositivitychargedconjectureconsistentcoupleddiscardedgravity
verification ladder T0 review T1 audit T2 compute T3 formal T4 reserved
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We apply positivity bounds directly to a $U(1)$ gauge theory with charged scalars and charged fermions, i.e. QED, minimally coupled to gravity. Assuming that the massless $t$-channel pole may be discarded, we show that the improved positivity bounds are violated unless new physics is introduced at the parametrically low scale $\Lambda_{\rm new} \sim (e m M_{\rm pl})^{1/2}$, consistent with similar results for scalar field theories, far lower than the scale implied by the weak gravity conjecture. This is sharply contrasted with previous treatments which focus on the application of positivity bounds to the low energy gravitational Euler-Heisenberg effective theory only. We emphasise that the low-cutoff is a consequence of applying the positivity bounds under the assumption that the pole may be discarded. We conjecture an alternative resolution that a small amount of negativity, consistent with decoupling limits, is allowed and not in conflict with standard UV completions, including weakly coupled ones.

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Cited by 5 Pith papers

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    Thermodynamic consistency in thermal scalar EFTs requires the Wilson coefficient of the leading dimension-8 operator to be strictly positive.

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