Ultra-Planckian scattering from a QFT for gravity

TL;DR

This paper investigates high-energy gravitational scattering in quantum quadratic gravity, revealing cancellations that lead to well-behaved cross sections and exploring the structure of scattering amplitudes.

Contribution

It demonstrates that quantum quadratic gravity yields finite, well-behaved scattering cross sections at high energies and analyzes the structure of relevant amplitudes.

Findings

Tree-level differential cross sections behave as 1/E^2

Cancellations ensure unitarity without positivity

Analysis of scattering amplitudes for various graviparticle spins

Abstract

Astonishing cancellations take place in the calculation of high-energy scattering cross sections in quantum quadratic gravity, a quantum field theory for gravity. Tree-level differential cross sections that are minimally inclusive behave as $1/E^2$, as desired for a well-behaved UV completion. Such cross sections are calculated for the various spin states of the massless and massive graviparticles. These describe the hard scattering processes that occur in a picture involving the gravitational analog of parton showers. The structure of some of the simpler amplitudes is also explored. Unitarity without positivity is the key property of the perturbative theory.