Scattering amplitudes, black holes and leading singularities in cubic theories of gravity

Emond, William T.; Moynihan, Nathan

Abstract

We compute the semi-classical potential arising from a generic theory of cubic gravity, a higher derivative theory of spin-2 particles, in the framework of modern amplitude techniques. We show that there are several interesting aspects of the potential, including some non-dispersive terms that lead to black hole solutions (including quantum corrections) that agree with those derived in Einsteinian cubic gravity (ECG). We show that these non-dispersive terms could be obtained from theories that include the Gauss- Bonnet cubic invariant G3. In addition, we derive the one-loop scattering amplitudes using both unitarity cuts and via the leading singularity, showing that the classical effects of higher derivative gravity can be easily obtained directly from the leading singularity with far less computational cost.

Citation

Emond, W. T., & Moynihan, N. (2019). Scattering amplitudes, black holes and leading singularities in cubic theories of gravity. Journal of High Energy Physics, 2019(12), Article 19. https://doi.org/10.1007/jhep12%282019%29019

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Oct 23, 2019
• Online Publication Date: Dec 3, 2019
• Publication Date: 2019-12
• Deposit Date: Jan 6, 2020
• Publicly Available Date: Jan 8, 2020
• Journal: Journal of High Energy Physics
• Electronic ISSN: 1029-8479
• Publisher: Springer Verlag
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 2019
• Issue: 12
• Article Number: 19
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/jhep12%282019%29019
• Keywords: Scattering amplitudes; Classical theories of gravity; Models of quantum gravity
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/3678920
• Publisher URL: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FJHEP12%282019%29019
• Additional Information: Received: 13 June 2019; Revised: 11 September 2019; Accepted: 23 October 2019; First Online: 3 December 2019