Derivative expansion of the heat kernel in curved space
High Energy Physics - Theory
2008-11-26 v2 General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
Abstract
The heat kernel in curved space-time is computed to fourth order in a strict expansion in the number of covariant derivatives. The computation is made for arbitrary non abelian gauge and scalar fields and for the Riemann connection in the coordinate sector. The expressions obtained hold for arbitrary tensor representations of the matter field. Complete results are presented for the diagonal matrix elements and for the trace of the heat kernel operator. In addition, Chan's formula is extended to curved space-time. As a byproduct, the bosonic effective action is also obtained to fourth order.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.0706.1875,
title = {Derivative expansion of the heat kernel in curved space},
author = {L. L. Salcedo},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0706.1875},
year = {2008}
}
Comments
11 pages, no figures. Discussion added at the end of section II about the nature of the derivative expansion. To appear in Phys.Rev.D