Planckian Energy Scattering and Surface Terms in the Gravitational Action

We employ the curvature expansion of the quantum effective action for gravity-matter systems to construct graviton-mediated scattering amplitudes for non-minimally coupled scalar fields in a Minkowski background. By design, the formalism parameterises all quantum corrections to these processes and is manifestly gauge-invariant. The conditions resulting from UV-finiteness, unitarity, and causality are analysed in detail and it is shown by explicit construction that the quantum...

In this proceedings for the MG14 conference, we discuss the construction of a phenomenology of Planck-scale effects in curved spacetimes, underline a few open issues and describe some perspectives for the future of this research line.

In this paper, following hep-th/0501028, we present a detailed derivation and discussion of the exact gravitational field solutions for a relativistic particle localized on a tensional brane in brane-induced gravity. Our derivation yields the metrics for both the normal branch and the self-inflating branch DGP braneworlds. They generalize the 4D gravitational shock waves in de Sitter space, and so we compare them to the corresponding 4D General Relativity solution and to the ...

We argue that the tree-level graviton-scalar scattering in the Regge limit is unitarized by non-perturbative effects within General Relativity. At Planckian energy the back reaction of the incoming graviton on the background geometry produces a non-perturbative plane wave which, in turn, softens the UV-behavior. Our amplitude then interpolates between the perturbative graviton-scalar scattering at low energy and scattering on a classical plane wave in the Regge limit.

This is a personal recollection of several results related to the study of the high energy limit of scattering amplitudes in gravitational theories. They would not have been possible without the encouragement and constant support from Lev Nikolaevich Lipatov.

Energy correlations characterize the energy flux through detectors at infinity produced in a collision event. Remarkably, in holographic conformal field theories, they probe high-energy gravitational scattering in the dual anti-de Sitter geometry. We use known properties of high-energy gravitational scattering and its unitarization to explore the leading quantum-gravity correction to the energy-energy correlator at strong coupling. We find that it includes a part originating ...

We show that there is a remarkable phase in quantum gravity where gravitational scattering amplitudes mediated by virtual gravitons can be calculated explicitly in effective field theory, when the impact parameter $b$ satisfies $L_{Pl}\ll b \lesssim R_S$, with $R_S$ being the Schwarzschild radius. This phase captures collisions with energies satisfying $\sqrt{s}\gg \gamma M_{Pl}$ (with $\gamma \sim M_{Pl}/M_{BH}$) near the horizon. We call this the black hole eikonal phase, i...

We explicitly compute the tree-level on-shell four-graviton amplitudes in four, five and six dimensions for local and weakly nonlocal gravitational theories that are quadratic in both, the Ricci and scalar curvature with form factors of the d'Alembertian operator inserted between. More specifically we are interested in renormalizable, super-renormalizable or finite theories. The scattering amplitudes for these theories turn out to be the same as the ones of Einstein gravity r...

We reanalyze the question of black hole creation in high energy scattering via shockwave collisions. We find that string corrections tend to increase the scattering cross-section. We analyze corrections in a more physical setting, of Randall-Sundrum type and of higher dimensionality. We also analyze the scattering inside AdS backgrounds.

Aspects of super-planckian gravitational scattering and black hole formation are investigated, largely via a partial-wave representation. At large and decreasing impact parameters, amplitudes are expected to be governed by single graviton exchange, and then by eikonalized graviton exchange, for which partial-wave amplitudes are derived. In the near-Schwarzschild regime, perturbation theory fails. However, general features of gravitational scattering associated with black hole...