Joint cosmology seminar at MIT:

Tuesday, February 13, 2018, 2:30 pm
Cosman Seminar Room
Center for Theoretical Physics
Building 6C, Room 6C-442
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Refreshments at 2:00 in the same room

Spin-2 scattering amplitudes and asymptotic superluminality

Austin Joyce
Columbia

Abstract:

I will describe constraints imposed on theories with spin-2 particles by relativistic causality. Specifically, we will explore the time delay/advance experienced by a spin-2 field propagating through a shockwave geometry and its calculation using eikonal scattering amplitudes. Demanding the absence of asymptotic time advances measurable in the effective theory constraints the possible cubic couplings that can be present. I will comment on extensions/generalizations and connections to similar constraints in curved spaces, including possible applications to cosmology.