English

Can quantum fluctuations differentiate between standard and unimodular gravity?

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology 2022-01-05 v1 High Energy Physics - Theory

Abstract

We formally prove the existence of a quantization procedure that makes the path integral of a general diffeomorphism-invariant theory of gravity, with fixed total spacetime volume, equivalent to that of its unimodular version. This is achieved by means of a partial gauge fixing of diffeomorphisms together with a careful definition of the unimodular measure. The statement holds also in the presence of matter. As an explicit example, we consider scalar-tensor theories and compute the corresponding logarithmic divergences in both settings. In spite of significant differences in the coupling of the scalar field to gravity, the results are equivalent for all couplings, including non-minimal ones.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2105.13886,
  title  = {Can quantum fluctuations differentiate between standard and unimodular gravity?},
  author = {Gustavo P. de Brito and Oleg Melichev and Roberto Percacci and Antonio D. Pereira},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2105.13886},
  year   = {2022}
}

Comments

14 pages + appendices and references

R2 v1 2026-06-24T02:34:32.951Z