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Seminar | High Energy Physics

Positivity of Amplitudes, Weak Gravity Conjecture, and Modified Gravity

HEP Theory Seminar

Abstract: We derive new positivity bounds for scattering amplitudes in theories with a massless graviton in the spectrum in four space-time dimensions, of relevance for the weak gravity conjecture and modified gravity theories. The bounds imply that extremal black holes are self-repulsive, M/|Q| < 1 in suitable units, and that they are unstable to decay to smaller extremal black holes, providing an S-matrix proof of the weak gravity conjecture. We also present other applications of our bounds to the effective field theory of weakly broken Galileons, axions, and P(X) theories