We study causality in gravitational systems beyond the classical limit. Using on-shell methods, we consider the one-loop corrections from charged particles to the photon energy-momentum tensor - the self-stress - that controls the quantum interaction
between two on-shell photons and one off-shell graviton. The self-stress determines in turn the phase shift and time delay in the scattering of photons against a spectator particle of any spin in the eikonal regime. We show that the sign of the $beta$-function associated to the running gauge coupling is related to the sign of time delay at small impact parameter. Our results show that, at first post-Minkowskian order, asymptotic causality, where the time delay experienced by any particle must be positive, is respected quantum mechanically. Contrasted with asymptotic causality, we explore a local notion of causality, where the time delay is longer than the one of gravitons, which is seemingly violated by quantum effects.
Upcoming Large-Scale Structure surveys will likely become the next leading sources of cosmological information, making it crucial to have a precise understanding of the influence of baryons on cosmological observables. The Effective Field Theory of L
arge-Scale Structure (EFTofLSS) provides a consistent way to predict the clustering of dark matter and baryons on large scales, where their leading corrections in perturbation theory are given by a simple and calculable functional form even after the onset of baryonic processes. In this paper, we extend the two-fluid-like system up to two-loop order in perturbation theory. Along the way, we show that a new linear counterterm proportional to the relative velocity of the fluids could generically be present, but we show that its effects are expected to be small in our universe. Regardless, we show how to consistently perform perturbation theory in the presence of this new term. We find that the EFTofLSS at two-loop order can accurately account for the details of baryonic processes on large scales. We compare our results to a hydrodynamical $N$-body simulation at many redshifts and find that the counterterms associated with the leading corrections to dark matter and baryons start to differ between redshifts $z approx 3$ and $z approx 2$, signaling the onset of star-formation physics. We then use these fits to compute the lensing power spectrum, show that the understanding of baryonic processes will be important for analyzing CMB-S4 data, and show that the two-loop EFTofLSS accurately captures these effects for $ell lesssim 2000$. Our results are also potentially of interest for current and future weak lensing surveys.
We study infrared effects in perturbation theory for large-scale structure coupled to the effective field theory of dark energy, focusing on, in particular, Degenerate Higher-Order Scalar-Tensor (DHOST) theories. In the subhorizon, Newtonian limit, D
HOST theories introduce an extra large-scale velocity $v^i_pi$ which is in general different from the matter velocity $v^i$. Contrary to the case in Horndeski theories, the presence of this extra large-scale velocity means that one cannot eliminate the long-wavelength effects of both $v^i$ and $v^i_pi$ with a single coordinate transformation, and thus the standard $Lambda$CDM consistency relations for large-scale structure are violated by terms proportional to the relative velocity $v^i - v^i_pi$. We show, however, that in non-linear quantities this violation is determined by the linear equations and the symmetries of the fluid system. We find that the size of the baryon acoustic oscillations in the squeezed limit of the bispectrum is modified, that the bias expansion contains extra terms which contribute to the squeezed limit of the galaxy bispectrum, that infrared modes in the one-loop power spectrum no longer cancel, and that the equal-time double soft limit of the tree-level trispectrum is non-vanishing. In addition, we give explicit expressions for how these violations depend on the relative velocity. Many of our computations are also relevant for perturbation theory in $Lambda$CDM with exact time dependence.
We study perturbation theory for large-scale structure in the most general scalar-tensor theories propagating a single scalar degree of freedom, which include Horndeski theories and beyond. We model the parameter space using the effective field theor
y of dark energy. For Horndeski theories, the gravitational field and fluid equations are invariant under a combination of time-dependent transformations of the coordinates and fields. This symmetry allows one to construct a physical adiabatic mode which fixes the perturbation-theory kernels in the squeezed limit and ensures that the well-known consistency relations for large-scale structure, originally derived in general relativity, hold in modified gravity as well. For theories beyond Horndeski, instead, one generally cannot construct such an adiabatic mode. Because of this, the perturbation-theory kernels are modified in the squeezed limit and the consistency relations for large-scale structure do not hold. We show, however, that the modification of the squeezed limit depends only on the linear theory. We investigate the observational consequences of this violation by computing the matter bispectrum. In the squeezed limit, the largest effect is expected when considering the cross-correlation between different tracers. Moreover, the individual contributions to the 1-loop matter power spectrum do not cancel in the infrared limit of the momentum integral, modifying the power spectrum on non-linear scales.
We study the screening mechanism in the most general scalar-tensor theories that leave gravitational waves unaffected and are thus compatible with recent LIGO/Virgo observations. Using the effective field theory of dark energy approach, we consider t
he general action for perturbations beyond linear order, focussing on the quasi-static limit. When restricting to the subclass of theories that satisfy the gravitational wave constraints, the fully nonlinear effective Lagrangian contains only three independent parameters. One of these, $beta_1$, is uniquely present in degenerate higher-order theories. We compute the two gravitational potentials for a spherically symmetric matter source and we find that for $beta_1 ge 0$ they decrease as the inverse of the distance, as in standard gravity, while the case $beta_1 < 0$ is ruled out. For $beta_1 > 0$, the two potentials differ and their gravitational constants are not the same on the inside and outside of the body. Generically, the bound on anomalous light bending in the Solar System constrains $beta_1 lesssim 10^{-5}$. Standard gravity can be recovered outside the body by tuning the parameters of the model, in which case $beta_1 lesssim 10^{-2}$ from the Hulse-Taylor pulsar.
We derive new positivity bounds for scattering amplitudes in theories with a massless graviton in the spectrum in four spacetime dimensions, of relevance for the weak gravity conjecture and modified gravity theories. The bounds imply that extremal bl
ack holes are self-repulsive, $M/|Q|<1$ in suitable units, and that they are unstable to decay to smaller extremal black holes, providing an S-matrix proof of the weak gravity conjecture. We also present other applications of our bounds to the effective field theory of axions, $P(X)$ theories, weakly broken galileons, and curved spacetimes.
We develop an analytic method for implementing the IR-resummation of arXiv:1404.5954, which allows one to correctly and consistently describe the imprint of baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO) on statistical observables in large-scale structure. We sh
ow that the final IR-resummed correlation function can be computed analytically without relying on numerical integration, thus allowing for an efficient and accurate use of these predictions on real data in cosmological parameter fitting. In this work we focus on the one-loop correlation function and the BAO peak. We show that, compared with the standard numerical integration method of IR-resummation, the new method is accurate to better than 0.2 %, and is quite easily improvable. We also give an approximate resummation scheme which is based on using the linear displacements of a fixed fiducial cosmology, which when combined with the method described above, is about six times faster than the standard numerical integration. Finally, we show that this analytic method is generalizable to higher loop computations.
We study the decay of gravitational waves into dark energy fluctuations $pi$, through the processes $gamma to pipi$ and $gamma to gamma pi$, made possible by the spontaneous breaking of Lorentz invariance. Within the EFT of Dark Energy (or Horndeski/
beyond Horndeski theories) the first process is large for the operator $frac12 tilde m_4^2(t) , delta g^{00}, left( {}^{(3)}! R + delta K_mu^ u delta K^mu_ u -delta K^2 right)$, so that the recent observations force $tilde m_4 =0$ (or equivalently $alpha_{rm H}=0$). This constraint, together with the requirement that gravitational waves travel at the speed of light, rules out all quartic and quintic GLPV theories. Additionally, we study how the same couplings affect the propagation of gravitons at loop order. The operator proportional to $tilde m_4^2$ generates a calculable, non-Lorentz invariant higher-derivative correction to the graviton propagation. The modification of the dispersion relation provides a bound on $tilde m_4^2$ comparable to the one of the decay. Conversely, operators up to cubic Horndeski do not generate sizeable higher-derivative corrections.
We compare analytical computations with numerical simulations for dark-matter clustering, in general relativity and in the normal branch of DGP gravity (nDGP). Our analytical frameword is the Effective Field Theory of Large-Scale Structure (EFTofLSS)
, which we use to compute the one-loop dark-matter power spectrum, including the resummation of infrared bulk displacement effects. We compare this to a set of 20 COLA simulations at redshifts $z = 0$, $z=0.5$, and $z =1$, and fit the free parameter of the EFTofLSS, called the speed of sound, in both $Lambda$CDM and nDGP at each redshift. At one-loop at $z = 0$, the reach of the EFTofLSS is $k_{rm reach}approx 0.14 , h { rm Mpc^{-1}}$ for both $Lambda$CDM and nDGP. Along the way, we compare two different infrared resummation schemes and two different treatments of the time dependence of the perturbative expansion, concluding that they agree to approximately $1%$ over the scales of interest. Finally, we use the ratio of the COLA power spectra to make a precision measurement of the difference between the speeds of sound in $Lambda$CDM and nDGP, and verify that this is proportional to the modification of the linear coupling constant of the Poisson equation.
We develop an approach to compute observables beyond the linear regime of dark matter perturbations for general dark energy and modified gravity models. We do so by combining the Effective Field Theory of Dark Energy and Effective Field Theory of Lar
ge-Scale Structure approaches. In particular, we parametrize the linear and nonlinear effects of dark energy on dark matter clustering in terms of the Lagrangian terms introduced in a companion paper, focusing on Horndeski theories and assuming the quasi-static approximation. The Euler equation for dark matter is sourced, via the Newtonian potential, by new nonlinear vertices due to modified gravity and, as in the pure dark matter case, by the effects of short-scale physics in the form of the divergence of an effective stress tensor. The effective fluid introduces a counterterm in the solution to the matter continuity and Euler equations, which allows a controlled expansion of clustering statistics on mildly nonlinear scales. We use this setup to compute the one-loop dark-matter power spectrum.
