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Axion experiments to algebraic geometry: Testing quantum gravity via the Weak Gravity Conjecture

Ben Heidenreich

Department of Physics, Harvard University, Jefferson Laboratory, 17 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA, 02138, USA

E-mail Address: bjheiden@physics.harvard.edu

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Matthew Reece

Department of Physics, Harvard University, Jefferson Laboratory, 17 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA, 02138, USA

E-mail Address: mreece@physics.harvard.edu

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Tom Rudelius

Department of Physics, Harvard University, Jefferson Laboratory, 17 Oxford Street, Cambridge, MA, 02138, USA

E-mail Address: rudelius@physics.harvard.edu

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https://doi.org/10.1142/S0218271816430057Cited by:10 (Source: Crossref)

Abstract

Common features of known quantum gravity theories may hint at the general nature of quantum gravity. The absence of continuous global symmetries is one such feature. This inspired the Weak Gravity Conjecture, which bounds masses of charged particles. We propose the Lattice Weak Gravity Conjecture, which further requires the existence of an infinite tower of particles of all possible charges under both abelian and nonabelian gauge groups and directly implies a cutoff for quantum field theory. It holds in a wide variety of string theory examples and has testable consequences for the real world and for pure mathematics. We sketch some implications of these ideas for models of inflation, for the QCD axion (and LIGO), for conformal field theory, and for algebraic geometry.

This essay is awarded fifth prize in the 2016 Essay Competition of the Gravity Research Foundation.

Keywords:

PACS: 04.60.−m, 04.60.Cf

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