English

Quantum gravitational corrections from the Wheeler-DeWitt equation for scalar-tensor theories

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology 2018-07-12 v2 High Energy Physics - Theory

Abstract

We perform the canonical quantization of a general scalar-tensor theory and derive the first quantum gravitational corrections following from a semi-classical expansion of the Wheeler-DeWitt equation. The non-minimal coupling of the scalar field to gravity induces a derivative coupling between the scalar field and the gravitational degrees of freedom, which prevents a direct application of the expansion scheme. We address this technical difficulty by transforming the theory from the Jordan frame to the Einstein frame. We find that a large non-minimal coupling can have strong effects on the quantum gravitational correction terms. We briefly discuss these effects in the context of the specific model of Higgs inflation.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1712.08543,
  title  = {Quantum gravitational corrections from the Wheeler-DeWitt equation for scalar-tensor theories},
  author = {Christian F. Steinwachs and Matthijs L. van der Wild},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1712.08543},
  year   = {2018}
}

Comments

33 pages, no figures, typos corrected, comments and references added, published in CQG