Scott Melville

Generalised matter couplings in massive bigravity

A bstractWe investigate matter couplings in massive bigravity. We find a new family of such consistent couplings, including and extending known consistent matter couplings, and we investigate their decoupling limits, ADM decompositions, Higuchi bounds and further aspects. We show that differences to previous known consistent couplings only arise beyond the Λ3 decoupling limit and discuss the uniqueness of consistent matter couplings and how this is related to the so-called symmetric vielbein condition. Since we work in a vielbein formulation, these results easily generalise to multi-gravity.

UV complete me: positivity bounds for particles with spin

A bstractFor a low energy effective theory to admit a standard local, unitary, analytic and Lorentz-invariant UV completion, its scattering amplitudes must satisfy certain inequalities. While these bounds are known in the forward limit for real polarizations, any extension beyond this for particles with nonzero spin is subtle due to their non-trivial crossing relations. Using the transversity formalism (i.e. spin projections orthogonal to the scattering plane), in which the crossing relations become diagonal, these inequalities can be derived for 2-to-2 scattering between any pair of massive particles, for a complete set of polarizations at and away from the forward scattering limit. This provides a set of powerful criteria which can be used to restrict the parameter space of any effective field theory, often considerably more so than its forward limit subset alone.

Improved Positivity Bounds and Massive Gravity

A bstractTheories such as massive Galileons and massive gravity can satisfy the presently known improved positivity bounds provided they are weakly coupled. We discuss the form of the EFT Lagrangian for a weakly coupled UV completion of massive gravity which closely parallels the massive Galileon, and perform the power counting of corrections to the scattering amplitude and the positivity bounds. The Vainshtein mechanism which is central to the phenomenological viability of massive gravity is entirely consistent with weak coupling since it is classical in nature. We highlight that the only implication of the improved positivity constraints is that the EFT cutoff is lower than previous assumed, and discuss the observable implications, emphasizing that these bounds are not capable of ruling out the model contrary to previous statements in the literature.

Massive Galileon Positivity Bounds

A bstractThe EFT coefficients in any gapped, scalar, Lorentz invariant field theory must satisfy positivity requirements if there is to exist a local, analytic Wilsonian UV completion. We apply these bounds to the tree level scattering amplitudes for a massive Galileon. The addition of a mass term, which does not spoil the non-renormalization theorem of the Galileon and preserves the Galileon symmetry at loop level, is necessary to satisfy the lowest order positivity bound. We further show that a careful choice of successively higher derivative corrections are necessary to satisfy the higher order positivity bounds. There is then no obstruction to a local UV completion from considerations of tree level 2-to-2 scattering alone. To demonstrate this we give an explicit example of such a UV completion.

Unitary null energy condition violation in P(X) cosmologies

A non-singular cosmological bounce in the Einstein frame can only take place if the Null Energy Condition (NEC) is violated. We explore situations where a single scalar field drives the NEC violation and derive the constraints imposed by demanding tree level unitarity on a cosmological background. We then focus on the explicit constraints that arise in P(X) theories and show that constraints from perturbative unitarity make it impossible for the NEC violation to occur within the region of validity of the effective field theory without also involving irrelevant operators that arise at a higher scale that would enter from integrating out more massive degrees of freedom. Within the context of P(X) theories we show that including such operators allows for a bounce that does not manifestly violate tree level unitarity, but at the price of either imposing a shift symmetry or involving technically unnatural small operator coefficients within the low-energy effective field theory.

Single photons in an imperfect array of beam-splitters: interplay between percolation, backscattering and transient localization

Photons in optical networks can be used in multi-path interferometry and various quantum information processing and communication protocols. Large networks, however, are often not free from defects, which can appear randomly between the lattice sites and are caused either by production faults or deliberate introduction. In this work we present numerical simulations of the behaviour of a single photon injected into a regular lattice of beam-splitting components in the presence of defects that cause perfect backward reflections. We find that the photon dynamics is quickly dominated by the backscattering processes, and a small fraction of reflectors in the paths of the beam-splitting array strongly affects the percolation probability of the photon. We carefully examine such systems and show an interesting interplay between the probabilities of percolation, backscattering and temporary localization. We also discuss the sensitivity of these probabilities to lattice size, timescale, injection point, fraction of reflectors and boundary conditions.