From Frame Covariance to the Swampland Distance Conjecture

TL;DR

This paper develops a frame-covariant geometric framework for gravitational effective field theories, clarifying how the Swampland Distance Conjecture applies across different conformal frames and suggesting broader implications for scalar-tensor theories.

Contribution

It introduces a fully frame-covariant approach to analyze gravitational EFTs, resolving ambiguities related to Weyl transformations and extending the applicability of Swampland Conjectures.

Findings

All conformal frames are distinct foliations of a higher-dimensional geometry.

Weyl transformations can be understood geometrically via ADM formalism.

Bounds from the Distance Conjectures are universal properties of gravitational EFTs.

Abstract

Field space geometry plays a central role within the Swampland Programme, most notably in the various Distance Conjectures. However, for gravitational EFTs, this geometry is not uniquely defined: one can cast the action in many synonymous descriptions related by Weyl transformations, in which the field space metric transforms non-trivially across conformal frames. This raises a crucial question of how we are meant to think of the field space metric in view of employing the Swampland Conjectures. In this work we resolve this ambiguity by developing a fully frame-covariant framework for studying gravitational EFTs. We show that all conformal frames arise as distinct foliations of a singular higher-dimensional auxiliary geometry. Applying ADM formalism to the augmented field space, it is clear how Weyl- and unit transformations can be understood from a geometric point of view. Using this framework, we revisit the Species Scale Distance Conjecture and Sharpened Distance Conjecture, and show how the bounds derive from universal properties of gravitational EFTs under Weyl transformations. This strongly suggests that aspects of these conjectures apply to a much broader class of scalar-tensor theories and are consequences of frame covariance, rather than constraints imposed by quantum gravity.