12:30 pm MCP 3rd Floor Atrium
Infinite Distances and Factorization.
Infinite distance limits have been observed to enjoy a number of universal properties: they have "logarithmic" metric singularities, are always tied to weak-coupling limits, and are associated with the appearance of a tower of exponentially light fields in a wide range of string compactifications as described by the Swampland Distance Conjecture. Using information theory, I will explain how the first two of these universal features are consequences of unitarity, which dictates that there is always some set of observables that completely factorize in an infinite distance limit and generate a logarithmic metric singularity. I will also explain why such limits necessarily have dramatic quantum gravitational behavior. Put simply, gravity universally couples to stress-energy and thus obstructs the complete factorization of observables. Gravity must then decouple in a consistent factorization limit. I will explain how this both provides a bottom-up motivation for the Swampland Distance Conjecture and points towards ways around it.