Super-Planckian Spatial Field Variations and Quantum Gravity

Autor: Klaewer, Daniel, Palti, Eran
Rok vydání: 2016
Předmět:
Druh dokumentu: Working Paper
DOI: 10.1007/JHEP01(2017)088
Popis: We study scenarios where a scalar field has a spatially varying vacuum expectation value such that the total field variation is super-Planckian. We focus on the case where the scalar field controls the coupling of a U(1) gauge field, which allows us to apply the Weak Gravity Conjecture to such configurations. We show that this leads to evidence for a conjectured property of quantum gravity that as a scalar field variation in field space asymptotes to infinity there must exist an infinite tower of states whose mass decreases as an exponential function of the scalar field variation. We determine the rate at which the mass of the states reaches this exponential behaviour showing that it occurs quickly after the field variation passes the Planck scale.
Comment: 10pp; v2: Expanded discussions to improve clarity, published version. v3: improved discussion, results unchanged
Databáze: arXiv