Pith. sign in

REVIEW 6 cited by

Positivity Bounds and the Massless Spin-2 Pole

Not yet reviewed by Pith; the record is open.

This paper has not been read by Pith yet. Machine review is queued; the pith claim, tier, and objections will appear here once it completes.

SPECIMEN: schema-true, not a live event

T0 review · schema-true

One-sentence machine reading of the paper's core claim.

pith:XXXXXXXX · record.json · timestamp

arxiv 2007.12667 v2 pith:46ZGOA2U submitted 2020-07-24 hep-th

Positivity Bounds and the Massless Spin-2 Pole

classification hep-th
keywords positivityboundsgravitypolechannelfieldtheoryamplitude
verification ladder T0 review T1 audit T2 compute T3 formal T4 reserved
0 comments
read the original abstract

The presence of a massless spin-2 field in an effective field theory results in a $t$-channel pole in the scattering amplitudes that precludes the application of standard positivity bounds. Despite this, recent arguments based on compactification to three dimensions have suggested that positivity bounds may be applied to the $t$-channel pole subtracted amplitude. If correct this would have deep implications for UV physics and the Weak Gravity Conjecture. Within the context of a simple renormalizable field theory coupled to gravity we find that applying these arguments would constrain the low-energy coupling constants in a way which is incompatible with their actual values. This contradiction persists on deforming the theory. Further enforcing the $t$-channel pole subtracted positivity bounds on such generic renormalizable effective theories coupled to gravity would imply new physics at a scale parametrically smaller than expected, with far reaching implications. This suggests that generically the standard positivity bounds are inapplicable with gravity and we highlight a number of issues that impinge on the formulation of a three-dimensional amplitude which simultaneously satisfies the required properties of analyticity, positivity and crossing symmetry. We conjecture instead a modified bound that ought to be satisfied independently of the precise details of the high energy completion.

discussion (0)

Sign in with ORCID, Apple, or X to comment. Anyone can read and Pith papers without signing in.

Forward citations

Cited by 6 Pith papers

Reviewed papers in the Pith corpus that reference this work. Sorted by Pith novelty score.

  1. The Positivity Geometry of Photon--Dark-Photon Effective Field Theories

    hep-ph 2026-07 accept novelty 7.0

    Elastic positivity from a modified forward dispersion relation constrains the twelve dim-8 Wilson coefficients of the photon–dark-photon EFT to a spectrahedral cone, with hierarchies for non-forward mixed amplitudes a...

  2. Bootstrapping black holes at low impact parameter

    hep-th 2026-07 conditional novelty 7.0

    After eikonal subtraction, finite-grid SDR bootstrap extremal spectra support a cap-saturated black-hole-scale band and Regge-like ridge while leaving the intervening gap mostly empty.

  3. Full positivity bounds for anomalous quartic gauge couplings in SMEFT

    hep-ph 2026-03 unverdicted novelty 7.0

    Complete positivity bounds for the 22 aQGC coefficients in SMEFT restrict the viable parameter space to approximately 0.0313% of the naive total.

  4. Negative running of gravitational positivity

    hep-th 2026-03 unverdicted novelty 7.0

    Non-minimal three-point interactions induce negative one-loop running of Wilson coefficients in gravitational EFTs, yet graviton loops generate positive IR contributions that dominate the bounds after smearing if the ...

  5. A Dispersive Bootstrap for the Virasoro-Shapiro Amplitude

    hep-th 2026-06 unverdicted novelty 6.0

    Dispersive bootstrap with unitarity, crossing and a Virasoro-inspired ansatz isolates the Virasoro-Shapiro amplitude in a small island for the gravity-pole-subtracted four-point amplitude in 10D supersymmetry.

  6. Sampling the Graviton Pole and Deprojecting the Swampland

    hep-th 2026-04 unverdicted novelty 6.0

    A sampling-based bootstrap for graviton poles in EFTs yields non-projective bounds that fix the EFT cutoff scale relative to the Planck mass, with M/M_P ≲ 7.8 in D=5.