Brane world scenarios

We review proposals of brane world models which attempt to combine gauge theories with gravity at TeV scale by confining the gauge theory to a three-brane embedded in higher dimensional bulk. Gravity, however, propagates in the directions transverse to the brane as well.     

What is the magnetic Weak Gravity Conjecture for axions?

The electric Weak Gravity Conjecture demands that axions with large decay constant f couple to light instantons. The resulting large instantonic corrections pose problems for natural inflation. We explore an alternative argument based on the magnetic Weak Gravity Conjecture for axions, which we try to make more precise. Roughly speaking, it demands that the minimally charged string coupled to the dual 2‐form‐field exists in the effective theory. Most naively, such large‐f strings curve space too much to exist as static solutions, thus ruling out large‐f axions. More conservatively, one might allow non‐static string solutions to play the role of the required charged objects. In this case, topological inflation would save the superplanckian axion. Furthermore, a large‐f axion may appear in the low‐energy effective theory based on two subplanckian axions in the UV. The resulting effective string is a composite object built from several elementary strings and domain walls. It may or may not satisfy the magnetic Weak Gravity Conjecture depending on how strictly the latter is interpreted and on the cosmological dynamics of this composite object, which remain to be fully understood. Finally, we recall that large‐field brane inflation is naively possible in the codimension‐one case. We show how string‐theoretic back‐reaction closes this apparent loophole of large‐f (non‐periodic) pseudo‐axions.     

Weak Gravity Conjecture and extremal black holes

Motivated by the desire to improve our understanding of the Weak Gravity Conjecture, we compute the one-loop correction of charged particles to the geometry and entropy of extremal black holes in 4D. We use the entropy function formalism to extend previous analysis that dealt with neutral particles, and obtain the corrections to the horizon entropy for different regimes of black hole masses. These corrections are small in general. They are furthermore reduced when supersymmetry is present, and disappear in N = 4 supergravity. We provide some speculative arguments that in a theory with only sub-extremal particles, classical Reissner-Nordstrom black holes actually possess an infinite microcanonical entropy, though only a finite amount is visible to an external observer, as shown by the horizon entropy computation.     

The double copy: gravity from gluons

Three of the four fundamental forces in nature are described by so-called gauge theories, which include the effects of both relativity and quantum mechanics. Gravity, on the other hand, is described by General Relativity, and the lack of a well-behaved quantum theory – believed to be relevant at the centre of black holes, and at the Big Bang itself – remains a notorious unsolved problem. Recently a new correspondence, the double copy, has been discovered between scattering amplitudes (quantities related to the probability for particles to interact) in gravity, and their gauge theory counterparts. This has subsequently been extended to other quantities, providing gauge theory analogues of e.g. black holes. We here review current research on the double copy, and describe some possible applications.     

Unitarity bounds on low scale quantum gravity

We study the unitarity of models with low scale quantum gravity both in four dimensions and in models with a large extra-dimensional volume. We find that models with low scale quantum gravity have problems with unitarity below the scale at which gravity becomes strong. An important consequence of our work is that their first signal at the Large Hadron Collider would not be of a gravitational nature such as graviton emission or small black holes, but rather would be linked to the mechanism which fixes the unitarity problem. We also study models with scalar fields with non-minimal couplings to the Ricci scalar. We consider the strength of gravity in these models and study the consequences for inflation models with non-minimally coupled scalar fields. We show that a single scalar field with a large non-minimal coupling can lower the Planck mass in the TeV region. In that model, it is possible to lower the scale at which gravity becomes strong down to 14 TeV without violating unitarity below that scale.     

Black hole evaporation with separated fermions

In models with a low quantum gravity scale, fast proton decay can be avoided by localizing quarks and leptons to separated positions in an extra 1/TeV sized dimension with gauge and Higgs fields living throughout. Black holes with masses of the order of the quantum gravity scale are therefore expected to evaporate nonuniversally, preferentially radiating directly into quarks or leptons but not both. Should black holes be copiously produced at a future hadron collider, we find the ratio of final state jets to charged leptons to photons is 113:8:1, which differs from previous analyses that assumed all standard model fields live at the same point in the extra dimensional space.     

Direct imaging rapidly-rotating non-Kerr black holes

Recently, two of us have argued that non-Kerr black holes in gravity theories different from General Relativity may have a topologically non-trivial event horizon. More precisely, the spatial topology of the horizon of non-rotating and slow-rotating objects would be a 2-sphere, like in Kerr space–time, while it would change above a critical value of the spin parameter. When the topology of the horizon changes, the black hole central singularity shows up. The accretion process from a thin disk can potentially overspin these black holes and induce the topology transition, violating the Weak Cosmic Censorship Conjecture. If the astrophysical black hole candidates are not the black holes predicted by General Relativity, we might have the quite unique opportunity to see their central region, where classical physics breaks down and quantum gravity effects should appear. Even if the quantum gravity region turned out to be extremely small, at the level of the Planck scale, the size of its apparent image would be finite and potentially observable with future facilities.     

Grand unification and enhanced quantum gravitational effects

In grand unified theories with large numbers of fields, renormalization effects significantly modify the scale at which quantum gravity becomes strong. This in turn can modify the boundary conditions for coupling constant unification, if higher dimensional operators induced by gravity are taken into consideration. We show that the generic size of, and the uncertainty in, these effects from gravity can be larger than the two-loop corrections typically considered in renormalization group analyses of unification. In some cases, gravitational effects of modest size can render unification impossible.     

Two kinds of rotation: An argument for torsion

There are now many theories of gravity with a torsion field as well as the usual metric field. One of the arguments for allowing torsion is based upon a gauge theory analogy. The purpose of this paper is to clarify exactly which symmetries are being gauged in this process. The principal observation is that special relativity is invariant under two different kinds of Lorentz transformations. The first type rotate the fields and move them from one point to another in space-time. The second type merely rotate the fields at each point without changing their location. To gauge both types of rotations requires a torsion field as well as a metric field.This essay received honorable mention from the Gravity Research Foundation for the year 1980 (Ed.).     

Construction ofYM 4 with an infrared cutoff

We provide the basis for a rigorous construction of the Schwinger functions of the pure SU(2) Yang-Mills field theory in four dimensions (in the trivial topological sector) with a fixed infrared cutoff but no ultraviolet cutoff, in a regularized axial gauge. The construction exploits the positivity of the axial gauge at large field. For small fields, a different gauge, more suited to perturbative computations is used; this gauge and the corresponding propagator depends on large background fields of lower momenta. The crucial point is to control (in a non-perturbative way) the combined effect of the functional integrals over small field regions associated to a large background field and of the counterterms which restore the gauge invariance broken by the cutoff. We prove that this combined effect is stabilizing if we use cutoffs of a certain type in momentum space. We check the validity of the construction by showing that Slavnov identities (which express infinitesimal gauge invariance) do hold non-perturbatively.     

Gravitational instantons

The path-integral approach to quantum field theory assigns special importance to finite action Euclidean solutions of classical field equations. In Yang-Mills gauge theories, the instanton solutions of classical field equations with self-dual field strength have given rise to a new, nonperturbative treatment of the quantum field theory and its vacuum state. Since gravitation is also a species of gauge theory, one might think that similar phenomena would occur in gravity. The authors recently sought and found a new self-dual solution to Euclidean gravity which plays a role parallel to that of the Yang-Mills instanton. Gravitational instantons now promise to yield new insights into the nature of quantum gravity.This essay received the second award from the Gravity Research Foundation for the year 1979-Ed.     

Can we live in the bulk without a brane?

We suggest a braneless scenario that still hides large-volume extra dimensions. Ordinarily the strength of bulk gauge interactions would be diluted over the large internal volume, making all the four-dimensional forces weak. We use the fact that if the gauge fields result from the dimensional reduction of pure higher-dimensional gravity, then the strengths of the four-dimensional gauge interactions are related to the sizes of corresponding cycles averaged over the compact internal manifold. Therefore, if a gauge force is concentrated over a small cycle it will not be diluted over the entire manifold. Gravity, however, remains diluted over the large volume. Thus large-volume, large mass-gap extra dimensions with small cycles can remain hidden and result in a hierarchy between gravity and the other forces. However, problematically, the cycles are required to be smaller than the higher-dimensional Planck length and this raises concern over quantum gravity corrections. We speculate on possible cures.     

Towards gauge unified,supersymmetric hidden strong dynamics

We consider a class of models with extra complex scalars that are charged under both the Standard Model and a hidden strongly coupled S U(N)h gauge sector and discuss the seenarios in which the new scalars are identified as the messenger fields that mediate the spontaneously broken supersymmetries from the hidden sector to the visible sector.The new scalars are embedded into 5-plets and 10-plets of an S(/(5)v gauge group that potentially unifies the Standard Model gauge groups.The Higgs bosons remain as elementary particles.In the supersymmetrized version of this class of models,vector-like fermions whose left-handed components are superpartners of the new scalars are introduced.Owing to the hidden strong force,the new low-energy scalars hadronize before decaying and thus evade the common direct searches of the supersymmetric squarks.This can be seen as a gauge mediation seenario with the scalar messenger fields forming low-energy bound states.We also discuss the possibility that in the tower of bound states formed under hidden strong dynamics(of at least the TeV scale),there exist a dark matter candidate and the collider signatures(e.g.diphoton,diboson,or dijet)of models that may show up in the near future.     

Gauge theories of weak and strong gravity

A review of some recent papers on gauge theories of weak and strong gravity is presented. For weak gravity, SL(2, C) gauge theory along with tetrad formulation is described which yields massless spin-2 gauge fields (quanta gravitons). Next a unified SL(2n,C) model is discussed along with Higgs fields. Its internal symmetry is SU(n). The free field solutions after symmetry breaking yield massless spin-1 (photons) and spin-2 (gravitons) gauge fields and also massive spin-1 and spin-2 bosons. The massive spin-2 gauge fields are responsible for short range superstrong gravity. Higgs-fermion interaction can lead to baryon and lepton number non-conservation. The relationship of strong gravity with other forces is also briefly considered.     

Coupling of gravity to matter viaSO(3, 2) gauge fields

We consider gravity from the quantum field theory point of view and introduce a natural way of coupling gravity to matter by following the gauge principle for particle interactions. The energy-momentum tensor for the matter fields is shown to be conserved and follows as a consequence of the dynamics in a spontaneously brokenSO(3, 2) gauge theory of gravity. All known interactions are described by the gauge principle at the microscopic level.     

A unified gauge and gravity theory with only matter fields

We propose a purely fermionic action with gauge and general relativistic invariances. This implies a unified treatment of gravity and gauge theories without elementary metric tensor and gauge boson fields. At the quantum level this scale-invariant theory generates, as vacuum properties, both a metric and a scale Λ which becomes related to the Planck mass. The analysis of the spectrum displays, besides the original fermions, massless composite vierbein and gauge bosons, as well as a set of states with masses of order Λ. In a low-energy regime in which these heavy modes are not excited, the light sector is shown to be governed by a phenomenological action which coincides with the conventional gravity-gauge-matter theory without cosmological term and with a Newton constant and gauge couplings determined by Λ. For increasing energies, the gauge interactions are predicted to grow towards their merging with gra Λ, the theory differs substantially from the conventional one, not even allowing a definition of a space-time metric and providing hints for a milder ultraviolet behaviour.     

Quantum theory of dilaton gravity in 1+1 dimensions

We discuss the quantum theory of 1+1 dimensional dilaton gravity, which is an interesting model with features analogous to the spherically symmetric gravitational systems in 3+1 dimensions. The functional measures over the metrics and the dilaton field are explicitly evaluated and the diffeomorphism invariance is completely fixed in the conformal gauge by using the technique developed in two dimensional quantum gravity. We derive the Wheeler-DeWitt like equations as physical state conditions. In the ADM formalism the measures of fields are very ambiguous, but in our formalism they are explicitly defined. A singularity appears at ²=κ(>0), where and N is the number of matter fields. The final stage of the black hole evaporation corresponds to the region ²κ, where the Liouville term becomes important, which just comes from the measure of the metrics. If κ<0, the singularity disappears.     

Spontaneous symmetry breaking in local gauge quantum field theory; the Higgs mechanism

Spontaneous symmetry breakings in indefinite metric quantum field theories are analyzed and a generalization of the Goldstone theorem is proved. The case of local gauge quantum field theories is discussed in detail and a characterization is given of the occurrence of the Higgs mechanism versus the Goldstone mechanism. The Higgs phenomenon is explained on general grounds without the introduction of the so-called Higgs fields. The basic property is the relation between the local internal symmetry group and the local group of gauge transformations of the second kind. Spontaneous symmetry breaking ofc-number gauge transformations of the second kind is shown to always occur if there are charged local fields. The implications about the absence of mass gap in the Wightman functions and the occurrence of massless particles associated with the unbroken generators in the Higgs phenomenon are discussed.     

The algebra of physical observables in non-linearly realized gauge theories

We classify the physical observables in spontaneously broken non-linearly realized gauge theories in the recently proposed loopwise expansion governed by the Weak Power-Counting (WPC) and the Local Functional Equation. The latter controls the non-trivial quantum deformation of the classical non-linearly realized gauge symmetry, to all orders in the loop expansion. The Batalin–Vilkovisky (BV) formalism is used. We show that the dependence of the vertex functional on the Goldstone fields is obtained via a canonical transformation w.r.t. the BV bracket associated with the BRST symmetry of the model. We also compare the WPC with strict power-counting renormalizability in linearly realized gauge theories. In the case of the electroweak group we find that the tree-level Weinberg relation still holds if power-counting renormalizability is weakened to the WPC condition.