A note on the WGC, effective field theory and clockwork within string theory

DOI10.1007/JHEP02(2018)057zbMATH Open1387.83085arXiv1709.02392OpenAlexW2753182773MaRDI QIDQ1748750

Author name not available (Why is that?)

Publication date: 14 May 2018

Published in: (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: It has been recently argued that Higgsing of theories with

U (1)^{n}

gauge interactions consistent with the Weak Gravity Conjecture (WGC) may lead to effective field theories parametrically violating WGC constraints. The minimal examples typically involve Higgs scalars with a large charge with respect to a

U (1)

(e.g. charges

(Z, 1)

in

U (1)^{2}

with

Z g g 1

). This type of Higgs multiplets play also a key role in clockwork

U (1)

theories. We study these issues in the context of heterotic string theory and find that, while indeed there is no new physics at the standard magnetic WGC scale

L a m b d a s i m g_{I R} M_{P}

, the string scale is just slightly above, at a scale

s i m s q r t k_{I R} L a m b d a

. Here

k_{I R}

is the level of the IR

U (1)

worldsheet current. We show that, unlike the standard magnetic cutoff, this bound is insensitive to subsequent Higgsing. One may argue that this constraint gives rise to no bound at the effective field theory level since

k_{0}

is model dependent and in general unknown. However there is an additional constraint to be taken into account, which is that the Higgsing scalars with large charge