Naturalness and the Weak Gravity Conjecture

2014/02/28 by Clifford Cheung, Grant N. Remmen · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #hep-ph #gr-qc #hep-th

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.113.051601

published as Phys. Rev. Lett. 113, 051601 (2014) · 5 pages, 1 figure. Discussion of EFT cutoffs added. Text rearranged/shortened for publication in PRL

arxiv created 2014/07/30 · arxiv updated 2014/07/31

Abstract

The weak gravity conjecture (WGC) is an ultraviolet consistency condition asserting that an Abelian force requires a state of charge q and mass m with q>m/m_{\rm Pl}. We generalize the WGC to product gauge groups and study its tension with the naturalness principle for a charged scalar coupled to gravity. Reconciling naturalness with the WGC either requires a Higgs phase or a low cutoff at Λ∼ q m_{\rm Pl}. If neither applies, one can construct simple models that forbid a natural electroweak scale and whose observation would rule out the naturalness principle.

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