Contributor info: Dr Diego Pardo Santos

Jackson R. Fliss, Ben Freivogel, Eleni-Alexandra Kontou, Diego Pardo Santos

SciPost Phys. 19, 087 (2025) · published 7 October 2025 | Toggle abstract · pdf

Smeared null energy has been shown to be bounded from below for free minimally coupled quantum field theories. This is not the case for conformally coupled free bosonic theories where states of unbounded null energy can be constructed by increasing the particle number. Little is known for interacting conformal field theories (CFTs) in dimensions larger than two. In this work we consider states that are superpositions of scalar primary operators or the stress-energy tensor itself in large $N$ CFTs. Within the large $N$ approximation we present arguments that the negative smeared null energy of such states scales at worst as the central charge of the theory, $C_T$. This provides evidence for a general bound for CFTs in $d$-dimensions proportional to the central charge.

Jackson R. Fliss, Ben Freivogel, Eleni-Alexandra Kontou, Diego Pardo Santos

SciPost Phys. 16, 119 (2024) · published 2 May 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

The non-minimal coupling of scalar fields to gravity has been claimed to violate energy conditions, leading to exotic phenomena such as traversable wormholes, even in classical theories. In this work we adopt the view that the non-minimal coupling can be viewed as part of an effective field theory (EFT) in which the field value is controlled by the theory's cutoff. Under this assumption, the average null energy condition, whose violation is necessary to allow traversable wormholes, is obeyed both classically and in the context of quantum field theory. In addition, we establish a type of "smeared" null energy condition in the non-minimally coupled theory, showing that the null energy averaged over a region of spacetime obeys a state dependent bound, in that it depends on the allowed field range. We finally motivate our EFT assumption by considering when the gravity plus matter path integral remains semi-classically controlled.