Treatments and placebos for the pathologies of effective field theories

Abstract

We demonstrate some shortcomings of "fixing the equations," an increasingly popular remedy for time evolution problems of effective field theories (EFTs). We compare the EFTs and their "fixed" versions to the UV theories from which they can be derived in two cases: K-essence and nonlinear Proca theory. We find that when an EFT breaks down due to loss of hyperbolicity, fixing does not approximate the UV theory well if the UV solution does not quickly settle down to vacuum. We argue that this can be related to the EFT approximation itself becoming invalid, which cannot be rectified by fixing.

5+4 pages. Version published as a PRD letter

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Cited by in corpus (6)

• The Science of the Einstein Telescope
• Fixing the dynamical evolution of self-interacting vector fields
• Scalarization of isolated black holes in scalar Gauss-Bonnet theory in the fixing-the-equations approach
• Aspects of time evolution in $p$-form field theories
• Internal symmetry to the rescue: well-posed 1+1 evolution of self-interacting vector fields
• Nontopological Electromagnetic Hedgehogs