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The Sky Remembers everything: Celestial amplitude, Shadow and OPE in quadratic EFT of gravity
by Arpan Bhattacharyya, Saptaswa Ghosh, Sounak Pal
Submission summary
| Authors (as registered SciPost users): | Arpan Bhattacharyya · Saptaswa Ghosh · Sounak Pal |
| Submission information | |
|---|---|
| Preprint Link: | scipost_202505_00020v2 (pdf) |
| Date accepted: | July 23, 2025 |
| Date submitted: | July 10, 2025, 1:13 p.m. |
| Submitted by: | Saptaswa Ghosh |
| Submitted to: | SciPost Physics |
| Ontological classification | |
|---|---|
| Academic field: | Physics |
| Specialties: |
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| Approach: | Theoretical |
Abstract
In this paper, we compute the celestial amplitude arising from higher curvature corrections to Einstein gravity, incorporating phase dressing. The inclusion of such corrections leads to effective modifications of the theory's ultraviolet (UV) behaviour. In the eikonal limit, we find that, in contrast to Einstein's gravity, where the $s$ and $t$-channel contributions cancel, these contributions remain non-vanishing in the presence of higher curvature terms. We examine the analytic structure of the resulting amplitude and derive a dispersion relation for the phase-dressed eikonal amplitude in quadratic gravity. Furthermore, we investigate the celestial conformal block expansion of the Mellin-transformed conformal shadow amplitude within the framework of celestial conformal field theory (CCFT). As a consequence, we compute the corresponding operator product expansion (OPE) coefficients using the Burchnall-Chaundy expansion. In addition, we evaluate the OPE via the Euclidean OPE inversion formula across various kinematic channels and comment on its applicability and implications. Finally, we briefly explore the Carrollian amplitude associated with the corresponding quadratic EFT.
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Author comments upon resubmission
We are resubmitting the revised version. The response to the queries raised by the referees has been addressed in individual authors' comment. The associated changes are colour coded (blue for the first Referee and violet for the second Referee.)
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Authors.
List of changes
First Referee:
- Explanation regarding the unitarity of quadratic EFT is added after (3.4) , page: 7-9.
2.Explanation regarding the eikonal exponentiation is added in Sec 3.2, page: 12-13.
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Footnote (5) added explaining the analytic linearization of the exponential map.
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Derivation of GR contribution is added in (4.12).
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Typo fixed regarding the particle number "n" in (5.1).
Second Referee:
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The scalar matter is included explicitly in (3.7).
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$\gamma$ is explicitly defined after (2.10).
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Footnote (3) added regarding notations and order of operations mentioned in pt. 4.
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$\delta_1,2$ are defined in (3.13).
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The relation between t and q^2 is defined (3.15).
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Large $\omega$ limit explained after (3.35).
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Notational change regarding the OPE coefficients made around (4.27, 4.28)
Published as SciPost Phys. 19, 041 (2025)
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