Axion Experiments to Algebraic Geometry: Testing Quantum Gravity via the Weak Gravity Conjecture
arXiv:1605.05311 · doi:10.1142/S0218271816430057
Abstract
Common features of known quantum gravity theories may hint at the general nature of quantum gravity. The absence of continuous global symmetries is one such feature. This inspired the Weak Gravity Conjecture, which bounds masses of charged particles. We propose the Lattice Weak Gravity Conjecture, which further requires the existence of an infinite tower of particles of all possible charges under both abelian and nonabelian gauge groups and directly implies a cutoff for quantum field theory. It holds in a wide variety of string theory examples and has testable consequences for the real world and for pure mathematics. We sketch some implications of these ideas for models of inflation, for the QCD axion (and LIGO), for conformal field theory, and for algebraic geometry.
Awarded fifth place in the 2016 Gravity Research Foundation Essay Contest; slightly revised for arxiv
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Cited by in corpus (10)
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- Tensionless Strings and the Weak Gravity Conjecture
- Evidence for a Lattice Weak Gravity Conjecture
- A Stringy Test of the Scalar Weak Gravity Conjecture
- The Weak Gravity Conjecture and Emergence from an Ultraviolet Cutoff
- Merging the Weak Gravity and Distance Conjectures Using BPS Extremal Black Holes
- Modular Fluxes, Elliptic Genera, and Weak Gravity Conjectures in Four Dimensions
- Can Gravitational Instantons Really Constrain Axion Inflation?
- On the 3-form formulation of axion potentials from D-brane instantons
- Hitchhiker's Guide to the Swampland: The Cosmologist's Handbook to the string-theoretical Swampland Programme