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Natural Selection Rules: New Positivity Bounds for Massive Spinning Particles

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arxiv 2108.06334 v1 pith:GEQFSI6X submitted 2021-08-13 hep-th hep-ph

classification hep-thhep-ph
keywords boundsamplitudepositivityderivativederivativesderivemassiveparticles
verification ladder T0 review T1 audit T2 compute T3 formal

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abstract

We derive new effective field theory (EFT) positivity bounds on the elastic $2\to2$ scattering amplitudes of massive spinning particles from the standard UV properties of unitarity, causality, locality and Lorentz invariance. By bounding the $t$ derivatives of the amplitude (which can be represented as angular momentum matrix elements) in terms of the total ingoing helicity, we derive stronger unitarity bounds on the $s$- and $u$-channel branch cuts which determine the dispersion relation. In contrast to previous positivity bounds, which relate the $t$-derivative to the forward-limit EFT amplitude with no $t$ derivatives, our bounds establish that the $t$-derivative alone must be strictly positive for sufficiently large helicities. Consequently, they provide stronger constraints beyond the forward limit and can be used to constrain dimension-6 interactions with a milder assumption about the high-energy growth of the UV amplitude.

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Forward citations

Cited by 8 Pith papers

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

  1. (Super)$\,$Gravity from Positivity

    hep-th 2025-07 conditional novelty 8.0 of 10

    Positivity of scattering amplitudes forces weakly coupled EFTs of a massive spin-3/2 particle to include gravity, and for charged states a gauged photon with g=2 and WGC-saturating charge.

  2. Propagator positivity bounds for cosmological correlators

    hep-th 2025-12 conditional novelty 7.0 of 10

    An infinite tower of two-sided positivity bounds constrains the EFT coefficients of heavy fields on de Sitter, ruling out correlators with no unitary/causal UV completion.

  3. Geometry of effective field theory positivity cones

    math-ph 2025-08 accept novelty 7.0 of 10

    For three particle flavors, the positivity cone C_W has exactly three families of extremal rays, one of which yields genuinely new inelastic constraints not implied by elastic bounds.

  4. Matrix moment approach to positivity bounds and UV reconstruction from IR

    hep-th 2024-11 conditional novelty 7.0 of 10

    Positivity bounds for multi-field EFTs are formulated as matrix moment problems, yielding optimal bounds and a method to reverse engineer the UV mass, spin, and coupling spectrum from low-energy coefficients.

  5. S-matrix bootstrap bounds on self-interacting dark matter

    hep-ph 2026-07 conditional novelty 6.0 of 10

    Weakly coupled scalar self-interacting dark matter cannot be heavier than ~0.3 GeV (generic) or ~MeV (derivative-coupled pNGB), much tighter than the 12 GeV unitarity bound.

  6. Targets for Flavor-Violating Top Decay

    hep-ph 2025-04 accept novelty 6.0 of 10

    In leptoquark-like new physics, rare top decays to quarks and electron/muon pairs are predicted to occur at branching ratios of about 10^-8 to 10^-6, putting some within reach of LHC searches.

  7. Dark Photons and Gravitino Like Particles: Complete EFT Operator Basis

    hep-ph 2024-12 conditional novelty 6.0 of 10

    A new on-shell method using Young tableaux constructs complete EFT operator bases for massive particles of any spin, applied to dark photons and spin-3/2 gravitino-like particles up to dimension 8.

  8. Causality bounds from charged shockwaves in 5d

    hep-th 2024-12 conditional novelty 5.0 of 10

    Causality on 5d charged shockwaves gives positivity bounds on four-derivative Einstein-Maxwell couplings, with gravity weakening the pure-field-theory bounds and near-horizon photons providing the strongest constraints.

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