Published April 2016 | Version Submitted + Published
Journal Article Open

Positive Signs in Massive Gravity

Abstract

We derive new constraints on massive gravity from unitarity and analyticity of scattering amplitudes. Our results apply to a general effective theory defined by Einstein gravity plus the leading soft diffeomorphism-breaking corrections. We calculate scattering amplitudes for all combinations of tensor, vector, and scalar polarizations. The high-energy behavior of these amplitudes prescribes a specific choice of couplings that ameliorates the ultraviolet cutoff, in agreement with existing literature. We then derive consistency conditions from analytic dispersion relations, which dictate positivity of certain combinations of parameters appearing in the forward scattering amplitudes. These constraints exclude all but a small island in the parameter space of ghost-free massive gravity. While the theory of the "Galileon" scalar mode alone is known to be inconsistent with positivity constraints, this is remedied in the full massive gravity theory.

Additional Information

© 2016 The Authors. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY 4.0), which permits any use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited. Article funded by SCOAP3. Received: February 4, 2016; Accepted: March 19, 2016; Published: April 1, 2016. We thank Brando Bellazzini, Claudia de Rham, Kurt Hinterbichler, Rachel Rosen, and Andrew Tolley for useful discussions and comments. C.C. is supported by a Sloan Research Fellowship and 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.

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Published - art_10.1007_JHEP04_2016_002.pdf

Submitted - 1601.04068v1.pdf

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Additional details

Identifiers

Eprint ID
63952
Resolver ID
CaltechAUTHORS:20160125-191623950

Related works

Funding

Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
Department of Energy (DOE)
DE-SC0010255
Fannie and John Hertz Foundation
NSF Graduate Research Fellowship
DGE-1144469
SCOAP3

Dates

Created
2016-01-26
Created from EPrint's datestamp field
Updated
2021-11-10
Created from EPrint's last_modified field

Caltech Custom Metadata

Caltech groups
Walter Burke Institute for Theoretical Physics
Other Numbering System Name
CALT-TH
Other Numbering System Identifier
2015-062