Applications of de Sitter Causality Conditions

Abstract

We find explicit de Sitter shockwave solutions in arbitrary spacetime dimensions. We use these to determine the dimensional-dependent "stretching" of the de Sitter Penrose diagram in the presence of a shock or black hole. This stretching sets the scale at which superluminalities in de Sitter can be considered resolvable. We then consider an RFF coupling for a spin-1 particle and a Gauss-Bonnet coupling for a spin-2 particle and analyze these in terms of our proposed de Sitter causality criteria. We briefly discuss the connections between our results and corresponding results in anti de Sitter spacetime.

5 pages, no figures