Related papers: Asymptotic Safety, Singularities, and Gravitationa…
It was recently shown that certain perturbatively accessible, non-supersymmetric gauge-Yukawa theories have UV asymptotic safety, without asymptotic freedom: the UV theory is an interacting RG fixed point, and the IR theory is free. We here…
Matter interacting classically with gravity in 3+1 dimensions usually gives rise to a continuum of degrees of freedom, so that, in any attempt to quantize the theory, ultraviolet divergences are nearly inevitable. Here, we investigate…
We explore the consequences of requiring that quantum theories of gravity be unitary, mostly focusing on simple cosmological models to illustrate the main points. We show that unitarity for a clock that encounters a classical singularity at…
We review and extend in several directions recent results on the asymptotic safety approach to quantum gravity. The central issue in this approach is the search of a Fixed Point having suitable properties, and the tool that is used is a…
Asymptotic Safety implies that observables including scattering amplitudes remain finite at the highest energy scales. Traditionally, this feature is connected to an interacting fixed point of the Wilsonian renormalization group that…
The asymptotic safety scenario of Quantum Einstein Gravity, the quantum field theory of the spacetime metric, is reviewed and it is argued that the theory is likely to be nonperturbatively renormalizable. It is also shown that asymptotic…
The gravitational collapse of a thick cylindrical shell of dust matter is investigated. It is found that a spacetime singularity forms on the symmetry axis and that it is necessarily naked, i.e., observable in principle. We propose a…
General relativity predicts a singularity in the beginning of the universe being called big bang. Recent developments in loop quantum cosmology avoid the singularity and the big bang is replaced by a big bounce. A classical theory of…
If gravity is asymptotically safe, operators will exhibit anomalous scaling at the ultraviolet fixed point in a way that makes the theory effectively two-dimensional. A number of independent lines of evidence, based on different approaches…
We establish the formalism in the nonsymmetric gravitational theory (NGT) for stellar equilibrium and gravitational collapse. We study the collapse of a pressureless, spherically symmetric dust cloud. By assuming that the interior solution…
The idea of "asymptotically free" gravity is implemented using a constrained mimetic scalar field. The effective gravitational constant is assumed to vanish at some limiting curvature. As a result singularities in contracting spatially flat…
Penrose's singularity theorem implies that if a trapped region forms in a gravitational collapse, then a singularity must form as well within such region. However, it is widely expected that singularities should be generically avoided by…
Both General Relativity and the Standard Model of particle physics are not UV complete. General Relativity is perturbatively non-renormalizable, while the Standard Model features Landau poles, where couplings are predicted to diverge at…
Asymptotic safety is a remarkable example when fruitful ideas borrowed from statistical physics proliferate to high-energy physics. The concept of asymptotic safety is tightly connected to fixed points (FPs) of the renormalization-group…
I review the field-theoretic renomalization group approach to quantum gravity, built around the existence of a non-trivial ultraviolet fixed point in four dimensions. I discuss the implications of such a fixed point, found in three largely…
We derive the dynamics of the gravitational collapse of a homogeneous and spherically symmetric cloud in a classical set-up endowed with a topological sector of gravity and a non-minimal coupling to fermions. The effective theory consists…
In a recent paper it was suggested that inclusion of mutual gravitational interactions among the collapsing particles can avert a singularity and give finite value for various physical quantities. In this paper we extend this idea further…
The ``Swampland Program'' aims to discriminate consistent-looking effective field theories that do not admit a UV completion in quantum gravity from those that do. While most often developed under the umbrella of string theory, several…
In this thesis we investigate various fundamental aspects of asymptotically safe quantum gravity, in particular the compatibility of Asymptotic Safety with the requirements for background independence and unitarity. The first part contains…
We consider the fate of future singularities in the effective dynamics of loop quantum cosmology. Non-perturbative quantum geometric effects which lead to $\rho^2$ modification of the Friedmann equation at high energies result in generic…