Related papers: Signs and Stability in Higher-Derivative Gravity
A scale--dependent effective action for gravity is introduced and an exact nonperturbative evolution equation is derived which governs its renormalization group flow. It is invariant under general coordinate transformations and satisfies…
A scalar theory can have many Gaussian (free) fixed points, corresponding to Lagrangians of the form $\phi\,\Box^k\phi$. We use the non-perturbative RG to study examples of flows between such fixed points. We show that the anomalous…
The previously developed renormalizable perturbative 1/N-expansion in higher dimensional scalar field theories is extended to gauge theories with fermions. It is based on the $1/N_f$-expansion and results in a logarithmically divergent…
Horava's "Lifschitz point gravity" has many desirable features, but in its original incarnation one is forced to accept a non-zero cosmological constant of the wrong sign to be compatible with observation. We develop an extension of…
The phase structure and the infrared behaviour of the Euclidean 3-dimensional $O(2)$ symmetric ghost scalar field $\phi$ has been investigated in Wegner and Houghton's renormalization group framework, including higher-derivatives in the…
The field equations in modified gravity theories possess an important decoupling property with respect to certain classes of nonholonomic frames. This allows us to construct generic off--diagonal solutions depending on all spacetime…
In this work we shall address the ghost issue of $F\left( R,\mathcal{G} \right)$ gravity, which is known to be plagued with ghost degrees of freedom. These ghosts occur due to the presence of higher than two derivatives in the field…
The second alternative conformal limit of the recently proposed general higher derivative dilaton quantum theory in curved spacetime is explored. In this version of the theory the dilaton is transformed, along with the metric, to provide…
We explore a classical instability of spacetimes of dimension $D>4$. Firstly, we consider static solutions: generalised black holes and brane world metrics. The dangerous mode is a tensor mode on an Einstein base manifold of dimension…
We investigate the asymptotic safety conjecture for quantum gravity including curvature invariants beyond Ricci scalars. Our strategy is put to work for families of gravitational actions which depend on functions of the Ricci scalar, the…
The trace anomaly in external gravity is the sum of three terms at criticality: the square of the Weyl tensor, the Euler density and Box R, with coefficients, properly normalized, called c, a and a', the latter being ambiguously defined by…
We study the renormalization of some dimension-4, 7 and 10 operators in a class of nonlinear scalar-tensor theories. These theories are invariant under: (a) linear diffeomorphisms which represent an exact symmetry of the full non-linear…
The most general version of a renormalizable $d=4$ theory corresponding to a dimensionless higher-derivative scalar field model in curved spacetime is explored. The classical action of the theory contains $12$ independent functions, which…
The Asymptotically Safe Gravity provides a framework for the description of gravity from the trans-Planckian regime to cosmological scales. According to this scenario, the cosmological constant and Newton's coupling are functions of the…
The renormalization group flow of unimodular quantum gravity is investigated within two different classes of truncations of the flowing effective action. In particular, we search for non-trivial fixed-point solutions for polynomial…
We analyse scale invariant quadratic quantum gravity incorporating non-minimal coupling to a multiplet of scalar fields in a gauge theory, with particular emphasis on the consequences for its interpretation resulting from a transformation…
We prove the renormalizability of various theories of classical gravity coupled with interacting quantum fields. The models contain vertices with dimensionality greater than four, a finite number of matter operators and a finite or reduced…
We report on a recently introduced Functional Renormalization Group (RG) Equation, and we apply it to quantum gravity in Lorentzian spacetimes. While the RG flow is state-dependent, it is possible to evaluate state and background…
We explore how the stability of metric perturbations in higher derivative theories of gravity depends on the energy scale of initial seeds of such perturbations and on a typical energy scale of the gravitational vacuum background. It is…
We formulate a renormalizable quantum gravity in $2+\epsilon$ dimensions by generalizing the nonlinear sigma model approach to string theory. We find that the theory possesses the ultraviolet stable fixed point if the central charge of the…