Infrared-Finite Positivity Bounds in 4D Gravity
Abstract
We formulate an S-matrix bootstrap in an exactly flat half-space, where boundary reflection provides geometric infrared control for four-dimensional gravity. Under the channel positivity conditions, we obtain an infrared-finite positivity bound on local four-scalar Wilson coefficients that includes a finite gravitational correction of order GN and is derived from the full UV absorptive spectrum without specifying a UV theory, imposing a spectral ansatz, requiring weak coupling or expanding the spectrum perturbatively. At fixed dimensionless external state parameters, the coefficient of the leading gravitational correction is independent of the EFT scale and requires neither an arbitrary soft resolution scale nor a model-dependent UV scale. Gaussian wave-packet scattering localizes interactions within the flat region and directly probes bulk Wilson coefficients while exponentially suppressing sensitivity to the boundary. Long-range gravitons remain sensitive to the boundary and give a finite contribution. The smearing functional passes numerical positivity tests with general half-space absorptive kernels in both crossed channels. An explicit string example shows how boundary reflection suppresses the collective contribution of string resonances to the absorptive part of the amplitude, connecting infrared control of low-energy scattering to the UV spectrum of quantum gravity in the same dispersion relation. The framework opens a route to infrared-finite constraints on effective interactions across particle physics and gravity.
Related
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BibTeX
@misc{dong2026infraredfinite,
title = {{Infrared-Finite Positivity Bounds in 4D Gravity}},
author = {Ziyu Dong},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2610.19149},
eprint = {2610.19149},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.19149},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Infrared-Finite Positivity Bounds in 4D Gravity
AU - Ziyu Dong
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/13
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2610.19149
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.19149
AB - We formulate an S-matrix bootstrap in an exactly flat half-space, where boundary reflection provides geometric infrared control for four-dimensional gravity. Under the channel positivity conditions, we obtain an infrared-finite positivity bound on local four-scalar Wilson coefficients that includes a finite gravitational correction of order G_N and is derived from the full UV absorptive spectrum without specifying a UV theory, imposing a spectral ansatz, requiring weak coupling or expanding the spectrum perturbatively. At fixed dimensionless external state parameters, the coefficient of the leading gravitational correction is independent of the EFT scale and requires neither an arbitrary soft resolution scale nor a model-dependent UV scale. Gaussian wave-packet scattering localizes interactions within the flat region and directly probes bulk Wilson coefficients while exponentially suppressing sensitivity to the boundary. Long-range gravitons remain sensitive to the boundary and give a finite contribution. The smearing functional passes numerical positivity tests with general half-space absorptive kernels in both crossed channels. An explicit string example shows how boundary reflection suppresses the collective contribution of string resonances to the absorptive part of the amplitude, connecting infrared control of low-energy scattering to the UV spectrum of quantum gravity in the same dispersion relation. The framework opens a route to infrared-finite constraints on effective interactions across particle physics and gravity.
ER -