On higher-derivative effects on the gravitational potential and particle bending

Abstract

Abstract Using modern amplitude techniques we compute the leading classical and quantum corrections to the gravitational potential between two massive scalars induced by adding cubic terms to Einstein gravity. We then study the scattering of massless scalars, photons and gravitons off a heavy scalar in the presence of the same R 3 deformations, and determine the bending angle in the three cases from the non-analytic component of the scattering amplitude. Similarly to the Einstein-Hilbert case, we find that the classical contribution to the bending angle is universal, but unlike that case, universality is preserved also by the first quantum correction. Finally we extend our analysis to include a deformation of the form ΦR 2 , where Φ is the dilaton, which arises in the low-energy effective action of the bosonic string in addition to the R 3 term, and compute its effect on the graviton bending.

Keywords

• Scattering Amplitudes
• Effective Field Theories
• Models of Quantum Gravity