Particle Theory Seminar: Matt Reece (Harvard): “The Weak Gravity Conjecture and Ultraviolet Cutoffs”

“The Weak Gravity Conjecture and Ultraviolet Cutoffs”

Abstract: The Weak Gravity Conjecture (WGC), in its original form, says that given an abelian gauge theory there should be at least one charged particle whose charge is bigger than its mass in Planck units. I will argue that the evidence we have suggests a much stronger conjecture, which requires towers of charged particles in infinitely many representations of the gauge group. This stronger conjecture leads to low ultraviolet cutoffs on theories with very weakly coupled gauge fields. I will discuss some possible phenomenological applications of the stronger conjecture.