English

Zooming in on fermions and quantum gravity

High Energy Physics - Theory 2019-04-19 v2 General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology

Abstract

We zoom in on the microscopic dynamics for fermions and quantum gravity within the asymptotic-safety paradigm. A key finding of our study is the unavoidable presence of a nonminimal derivative coupling between the curvature and fermion fields in the ultraviolet. Its backreaction on the properties of the Reuter fixed point remains small for finite fermion numbers within a bounded range. This constitutes a nontrivial test of the asymptotic-safety scenario for gravity and fermionic matter, additionally supplemented by our studies of the momentum-dependent vertex flow which indicate the subleading nature of higher-derivative couplings. Moreover our study provides further indications that the critical surface of the Reuter fixed point has a low dimensionality even in the presence of matter.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1812.08782,
  title  = {Zooming in on fermions and quantum gravity},
  author = {Astrid Eichhorn and Stefan Lippoldt and Marc Schiffer},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1812.08782},
  year   = {2019}
}

Comments

25 pages, 15 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-23T06:51:49.481Z