Graviton partial waves and causality in higher dimensions

Abstract

Do gravitational interactions respect the basic principles of relativity and quantum mechanics? We show that any graviton S-matrix that satisfies these assumptions cannot significantly differ from General Relativity at low energies. We provide sharp bounds on the size of potential corrections in terms of the mass M of new higher-spin states, in spacetime dimensions D>=5 where the S-matrix does not suffer from infrared ambiguities. The key novel ingredient is the full set of SO(D-1) partial waves for this process, which we show how to efficiently compute with Young tableau manipulations. We record new bounds on the central charges of holographic conformal theories.

arXiv comment6 pages + 6 appendices, ancillary files for partial wave data

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