11 research outputs found
UV-Completion by Classicalization
We suggest a novel approach to UV-completion of a class of non-renormalizable
theories, according to which the high-energy scattering amplitudes get
unitarized by production of extended classical objects (classicalons), playing
a role analogous to black holes, in the case of non-gravitational theories. The
key property of classicalization is the existence of a classicalizer field that
couples to energy-momentum sources. Such localized sources are excited in
high-energy scattering processes and lead to the formation of classicalons. Two
kinds of natural classicalizers are Nambu-Goldstone bosons (or, equivalently,
longitudinal polarizations of massive gauge fields) and scalars coupled to
energy-momentum type sources. Classicalization has interesting phenomenological
applications for the UV-completion of the Standard Model both with or without
the Higgs. In the Higgless Standard Model the high-energy scattering amplitudes
of longitudinal -bosons self-unitarize via classicalization, without the
help of any new weakly-coupled physics. Alternatively, in the presence of a
Higgs boson, classicalization could explain the stabilization of the hierarchy.
In both scenarios the high-energy scatterings are dominated by the formation of
classicalons, which subsequently decay into many particle states. The
experimental signatures at the LHC are quite distinctive, with sharp
differences in the two cases.Comment: 37 page
Causality violation, gravitational shockwaves and UV completion
The effective actions describing the low-energy dynamics of QFTs involving
gravity generically exhibit causality violations. These may take the form of
superluminal propagation or Shapiro time advances and allow the construction of
"time machines", i.e. spacetimes admitting closed non-spacelike curves. Here,
we discuss critically whether such causality violations may be used as a
criterion to identify unphysical effective actions or whether, and how,
causality problems may be resolved by embedding the action in a fundamental, UV
complete QFT. We study in detail the case of photon scattering in an
Aichelburg-Sexl gravitational shockwave background and calculate the phase
shifts in QED for all energies, demonstrating their smooth interpolation from
the causality-violating effective action values at low-energy to their
manifestly causal high-energy limits. At low energies, these phase shifts may
be interpreted as backwards-in-time coordinate jumps as the photon encounters
the shock wavefront, and we illustrate how the resulting causality problems
emerge and are resolved in a two-shockwave time machine scenario. The
implications of our results for ultra-high (Planck) energy scattering, in which
graviton exchange is modelled by the shockwave background, are highlighted.Comment: 42 pages, 15 figures, updated reference
Quantum gravitational corrections for spinning particles
We calculate the quantum corrections to the gauge-invariant gravitational potentials of spinning particles in flat space, induced by loops of both massive and massless matter fields of various types. While the corrections to the Newtonian potential induced by massless conformal matter for spinless particles are well-known, and the same corrections due to massless minimally coupled scalars [Class. Quant. Grav. 27 (2010) 245008], massless non-conformal scalars [Phys. Rev. D 87 (2013) 104027] and massive scalars, fermions and vector bosons [Phys. Rev. D 91 (2015) 064047] have been recently derived, spinning particles receive additional corrections which are the subject of the present work. We give both fully analytic results valid for all distances from the particle, and present numerical results as well as asymptotic expansions. At large distances from the particle, the corrections due to massive fields are exponentially suppressed in comparison to the corrections from massless fields, as one would expect. However, a surprising result of our analysis is that close to the particle itself, on distances comparable to the Compton wavelength of the massive fields running in the loops, these corrections can be enhanced with respect to the massless case
Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking in 4-Dimensional Heterotic String
The evolution of a 4-dimensional heterotic string is considered in the background of its massless excitations such as graviton, antisymmetric tensor, gauge fields and scalar bosons. The compactified bosonic coordinates are fermionized. The world-sheet supersymmetry requirement enforces Thirring-like four fermion coupling to the background scalar fields. The non-abelian gauge symmetry is exhibited through the Ward identities of the S-matrix elements. The spontaneous symmetry breaking mechanism is exhibited through the broken Ward identities. An effective 4-dimensional action is constructed and the consequence of spontaneous symmetry breaking is envisaged for the effective action. 19 refs