Spectral Constraints on Theories of Colored Particles and Gravity
In this Letter, we consider effective field theories for light fields transforming under the fundamental or adjoint representation of a continuous group. Assuming tree-level completions, we demonstrate that, in the presence of gravity, crossing symmetry combined with twice-subtracted sum rules leads to constraints on the irreducible representations that the ultraviolet degrees of freedom must populate. A spectrum is allowed only if its low energy projection contains the graviton pole. Beautifully, the graviton pole is the anchor of our argument, not an obstruction.
Authors
- Justinas Rumbutis (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1846-6282)
- Laurentiu Rodina (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7775-6370)
- Yu-tin Huang (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3554-7765)
- Karl J. Friston
Institutions
- California Institute of Technology (US)
- National Taiwan University (TW)
- National Center for Theoretical Sciences (TW)
- Institute of Mathematical Sciences (ES)
- National Center for Theoretical Sciences, Physics Division
- Beijing Institute of Mathematical Sciences and Applications
Publication Details
- Journal
- Physical Review Letters
- Published
- 2025-07-14
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1103/k23f-y47w
- Citations
- 1
- Primary Topic
- Cosmology and Gravitation Theories
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 1.15
Funders
- U.S. Department of Energy
- National Natural Science Foundation of China
- Walter Burke Institute for Theoretical Physics
- Beijing Municipal Natural Science Foundation