Causality in curved spacetimes: The speed of light and gravity
File(s)
Published version
Author(s)
de Rham, Claudia
Tolley, Andrew J
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Within the low-energy effective field theories of quantum electrodynamics and gravity, the low-energy speed of light or that of gravitational waves can typically be mildly superluminal in curved spacetimes. Related to this, small scattering time advances relative to the curved background can emerge from known effective field theory coefficients for photons or gravitons. We clarify why these results are not in contradiction with causality, analyticity or Lorentz invariance, and highlight various subtleties that arise when dealing with superluminalities and time advances in the gravitational context. Consistent low-energy effective theories are shown to self-protect by ensuring that any time advance and superluminality calculated within the regime of validity of the effective theory is necessarily unresolvable, and cannot be argued to lead to a macroscopically larger light cone. Such considerations are particularly relevant for putting constraints on cosmological and gravitational effective field theories and we provide explicit criteria to be satisfied so as to ensure causality.
Date Issued
2020-10-20
Date Acceptance
2020-08-18
Citation
PHYSICAL REVIEW D, 2020, 102 (8), pp.1-33
ISSN
1550-7998
Publisher
AMER PHYSICAL SOC
Start Page
1
End Page
33
Journal / Book Title
PHYSICAL REVIEW D
Volume
102
Issue
8
Copyright Statement
© 2020 The Author(s). Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article’s title, journal citation, and DOI. Funded by SCOAP3.
License URL
Identifier
http://gateway.webofknowledge.com/gateway/Gateway.cgi?GWVersion=2&SrcApp=PARTNER_APP&SrcAuth=LinksAMR&KeyUT=WOS:000580363000002&DestLinkType=FullRecord&DestApp=ALL_WOS&UsrCustomerID=1ba7043ffcc86c417c072aa74d649202
Subjects
Science & Technology
Physical Sciences
Astronomy & Astrophysics
Physics, Particles & Fields
Physics
ASYMPTOTIC BEHAVIORS
TIME-DELAY
SCATTERING
FIELD
PHOTONS
WAVES
TERMS
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
ARTN 084048
Date Publish Online
2020-10-20