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arXiv · 2406.07606

String loops and gravitational positivity bounds: imprint of light particles at high energies

Simon Caron-Huot·Junsei Tokuda
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Abstract

We study loop corrections to positivity bounds on effective field theories in the context of $2\to 2$ scattering in gravitational theories, in the presence of light particles. It has been observed that certain negative contributions at low energies are enhanced by inverse powers of a small mass $m$ and are nontrivial to cancel against other low-energy contributions. These originate from near the forward limit of diagrams involving graviton exchange. We observe that scattering in this kinematics domain remains infrared-sensitive even at high center-of-mass energy. By considering a string-inspired model in which high-energy loops can be calculated using unitarity and Regge behavior of tree amplitudes, we uncover a natural mechanism through which $1/m$-enhanced terms perfectly cancel between low and high energy contributions. This concretely explains possible positivity violations in the presence of gravity from the high-energy viewpoint.

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Simon Caron-Huot, Junsei Tokuda. 2024-11-05. String loops and gravitational positivity bounds: imprint of light particles at high energies. https://arxiv.org/abs/2406.07606

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