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A<sc>bstract</sc> Effective field theories are constrained by the requirement that their constituents never move superluminally on non-trivial backgrounds. In this paper, we study time delays experienced by photons propagating on charged shockwave backgrounds in five dimensions. In the absence of gravity — where the shockwaves are electric fields sourced by boosted charges — we derive positivity bounds for the four-derivative corrections to electromagnetism, reproducing previous results derived from scattering amplitudes. By considering the gravitational shockwaves sourced by Reissner-Nordström black holes, we derive new constraints in the presence of gravity. We observe the by-now familiar weakening of positivity bounds in the presence of gravity, but without the logarithmic divergences present in 4d. We find that the strongest bounds appear by examining the time delay near the horizon of the smallest possible black hole, and discuss on the validity of the EFT expansion in this region. We comment on our bounds in the context of the swampland program as well as their relation with the positivity bounds obtained from dispersion relations. 

A<sc>bstract</sc> The requirement that particles propagate causally on non-trivial backgrounds implies interesting constraints on higher-derivative operators. This work is part of a systematic study of the positivity bounds derivable from time delays on shockwave backgrounds. First, we discuss shockwaves in field theory, which are infinitely boosted Coulomb-like field configurations. We show how a positive time delay implies positivity of four-derivative operators in scalar field theory and electromagnetism, consistent with the results derived using dispersion relations, and we comment on how additional higher-derivative operators could be included. We then turn to gravitational shockwave backgrounds. We compute the infinite boost limit of Reissner-Nordström black holes to derive charged shockwave backgrounds. We consider photons traveling on these backgrounds and interacting through four-derivative corrections to Einstein-Maxwell theory. The inclusion of gravity introduces a logarithmic term into the time delay that interferes with the straightforward bounds derivable in pure field theory, a fact consistent with CEMZ and with recent results from dispersion relations. We discuss two ways to extract a physically meaningful quantity from the logarithmic time delay — by introducing an IR cutoff, or by considering the derivative of the time delay — and comment on the bounds implied in each case. Finally, we review a number of additional shockwave backgrounds which might be of use in future applications, including spinning shockwaves, those in higher dimensions or with a cosmological constant, and shockwaves from boosted extended objects. 

A bstract In two-derivative theories of gravity coupled to matter, charged black holes are self-attractive at large distances, with the force vanishing at zero temperature. However, in the presence of massless scalar fields and four-derivative corrections, zero-temperature black holes no longer need to obey the no-force condition. In this paper, we show how to calculate the long-range force between such black holes. We develop an efficient method for computing the higher-derivative corrections to the scalar charges when the theory has a shift symmetry, and compute the resulting force in a variety of examples. We find that higher-derivative corrected black holes may be self-attractive or self-repulsive, depending on the value of the Wilson coefficients and the VEVs of scalar moduli. Indeed, we find black hole solutions which are both superextremal and self-attractive. Furthermore, we present examples where no choice of higher-derivative coefficients allows for self-repulsive black hole states in all directions in charge space. This suggests that, unlike the Weak Gravity Conjecture, which may be satisfied by the black hole spectrum alone, the Repulsive Force Conjecture requires additional constraints on the spectrum of charged particles.