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Published February 3, 2017 | Submitted + Published
Journal Article Open

Positivity of Curvature-Squared Corrections in Gravity

Abstract

We study the Gauss-Bonnet (GB) term as the leading higher-curvature correction to pure Einstein gravity. Assuming a tree-level ultraviolet completion free of ghosts or tachyons, we prove that the GB term has a nonnegative coefficient in dimensions greater than 4. Our result follows from unitarity of the spectral representation for a general ultraviolet completion of the GB term.

Additional Information

© 2017 American Physical Society. Received 18 August 2016; published 1 February 2017. We thank Brando Bellazzini and Matt Reece for useful discussions and comments. C. C. is supported by a Sloan Research Fellowship and a DOE Early Career Award under Grant No. DE-SC0010255. G. N. R. is supported by a Hertz Graduate Fellowship and a NSF Graduate Research Fellowship under Grant No. DGE-1144469.

Attached Files

Published - PhysRevLett.118.051601.pdf

Submitted - 1608.02942v1.pdf

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Additional details

Created:
August 19, 2023
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February 10, 2024