Welcome to the new version of CaltechAUTHORS. Login is currently restricted to library staff. If you notice any issues, please email coda@library.caltech.edu
Published July 29, 2014 | Published + Submitted
Journal Article Open

Naturalness and the Weak Gravity Conjecture

Abstract

The weak gravity conjecture (WGC) is an ultraviolet consistency condition asserting that an Abelian force requires a state of charge q and mass m with q>m/m_(Pl). We generalize the WGC to product gauge groups and study its tension with the naturalness principle for a charged scalar coupled to gravity. Reconciling naturalness with the WGC either requires a Higgs phase or a low cutoff at Λ∼qm_(Pl). If neither applies, one can construct simple models that forbid a natural electroweak scale and whose observation would rule out the naturalness principle.

Additional Information

© 2014 American Physical Society. Received 19 February 2014; revised manuscript received 23 April 2014; published 29 July 2014. We thank Nima Arkani-Hamed, Sean Carroll, Meimei Dong, Stefan Leichenauer, Jesse Thaler, and Mark Wise for useful discussions and comments. We also thank the referees for helpful observations on this work. C. C. is supported by 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.113.051601.pdf

Submitted - 1402.2287v1.pdf

Files

PhysRevLett.113.051601.pdf
Files (733.2 kB)
Name Size Download all
md5:fa1927b313c84d7c513fc2c341e7f3ca
173.1 kB Preview Download
md5:e04815f129f80eb7ff775876169ccc2b
560.1 kB Preview Download

Additional details

Created:
August 20, 2023
Modified:
February 10, 2024