Expanding the Weak Gravity Conjecture in AdS Space

TL;DR

This paper extends the Weak Gravity Conjecture to AdS space, incorporating moduli and black hole decay processes, and proposes a universal criterion for particle spectra in various backgrounds.

Contribution

It generalizes the WGC to include moduli and black hole decay in AdS space, establishing a background-independent bound and suggesting a tower WGC in AdS.

Findings

WGC applies universally to AdS and Minkowski spaces.

Particle spectrum bounds are independent of background before moduli stabilization.

A stronger WGC condition emerges after moduli stabilization in AdS.

Abstract

In this work, we investigate the extension of our recent proposal for the Weak Gravity Conjecture (WGC) in AdS space to more general effective field theories. We first extend the conjecture to set-ups where moduli are present and we demand that a particle, produced during the decay of an extremal black hole via the Schwinger effect, is repelled close to the horizon of the black hole. We interpret this condition as the universal criterion imposed by the WGC for any background. Interestingly, the constraint imposed by the WGC on the particle spectrum, before the stabilization of the moduli, is independent of the background, resulting in the same bound both in Minkowski and in AdS space. For the case of AdS space, after the stabilization of the moduli, the WGC in AdS space is reproduced due to the formation of a non-singular horizon of the extremal black hole. In that case, the particle spectrum must satisfy the stronger of the two WGC conditions obtained before and after moduli stabilization. Finally, we use these results to argue that a similar version of the tower WGC should also apply to an AdS background.