We show that it is impossible to improve the high-energy behavior of the tree-level four-point amplitude of a massive spin-2 particle by including the exchange of any number of scalars and vectors in four spacetime dimensions. This constrains possible weakly coupled ultraviolet extensions of massive gravity, ruling out gravitational analogues of the Higgs mechanism based on particles with spins less than two. Any tree-level ultraviolet extension that is Lorentz invariant and unitary must involve additional massive particles with spins greater than or equal to two, as in Kaluza-Klein theories and string theory.
By adopting a local QFT framework one can derive in a non-perturbative manner the constraints imposed by Poincare symmetry on the form factors appearing in the Lorentz covariant decomposition of the energy-momentum tensor matrix elements. In particular, this approach enables one to prove that these constraints are in fact independent of the internal properties of the states appearing in the matrix elements. Here we outline the rationale behind this approach, and report on some of the implications of these findings.
We analyse the boundary structure of General Relativity in the coframe formalism in the case of a lightlike boundary, i.e., when the restriction of the induced Lorentzian metric to the boundary is degenerate. We describe the associated reduced phase space in terms of constraints on the symplectic space of boundary fields. We explicitly compute the Poisson brackets of the constraints and identify the first- and second-class ones. In particular, in the 3+1 dimensional case, we show that the reduced phase space has two local degrees of freedom, instead of the usual four in the non-degenerate case.
In this work we analyse the constraints imposed by Poincare symmetry on the gravitational form factors appearing in the Lorentz decomposition of the energy-momentum tensor matrix elements for massive states with arbitrary spin. By adopting a distributional approach, we prove for the first time non-perturbatively that the zero momentum transfer limit of the leading two form factors in the decomposition are completely independent of the spin of the states. It turns out that these constraints arise due to the general Poincare transformation and on-shell properties of the states, as opposed to the specific characteristics of the individual Poincare generators themselves. By expressing these leading form factors in terms of generalised parton distributions, we subsequently derive the linear and angular momentum sum rules for states with arbitrary spin.
Relativistic spin states are convention dependent. In this work we prove that the zero momentum-transfer limits of the leading two form factors in the decomposition of the energy-momentum tensor matrix elements are independent of this choice. In particular, we demonstrate that these constraints are insensitive to whether the corresponding states are massive or not, and that they arise purely due to the Poincare covariance of the states.
Dual gravitational charges have been recently computed from the Holst term in tetrad variables using covariant phase space methods. We highlight that they originate from an exact 3-form in the tetrad symplectic potential that has no analogue in metric variables. Hence there exists a choice of the tetrad symplectic potential that sets the dual charges to zero. This observation relies on the ambiguity of the covariant phase space methods. To shed more light on the dual contributions, we use the Kosmann variation to compute (quasi-local) Hamiltonian charges for arbitrary diffeomorphisms. We obtain a formula that illustrates comprehensively why the dual contribution to the Hamiltonian charges: (i) vanishes for exact isometries and asymptotic symmetries at spatial infinity; (ii) persists for asymptotic symmetries at future null infinity, in addition to the usual BMS contribution. Finally, we point out that dual gravitational charges can be equally derived using the Barnich-Brandt prescription based on cohomological methods, and that the same considerations on asymptotic symmetries apply.