Related papers: Asymptotic safety, string theory and the weak grav…
Type 0B string theory has been proposed as the dual description of non-supersymmetric SU(N) Yang-Mills theory coupled to six scalars, in four dimensions. We study numerically and analytically the equations of motion of type 0B gravity and…
We compute non-perturbative flow equations for the couplings of quantum gravity in fourth order of a derivative expansion. The gauge invariant functional flow equation for arbitrary metrics allows us to extract $\beta$-functions for all…
We discover that chiral symmetry does not act as an infrared attractor of the renormalization group flow under the impact of quantum gravity fluctuations. Thus, observationally viable quantum gravity models must respect chiral symmetry. In…
Constructing an explicit compactification yielding a metastable de Sitter (dS) vacuum in a UV consistent string theory is an incredibly difficult open problem. Motivated by this issue, as well as the conjecture that all non-supersymmetric…
I review the lattice approach to quantum gravity, and how it relates to the non-trivial ultraviolet fixed point scenario of the continuum theory. After a brief introduction covering the general problem of ultraviolet divergences in gravity…
We propose a framework where the string scale as well as all compact dimensions are at the electroweak scale $\sim$ TeV$^{-1}$. The weakness of gravity is attributed to the small value of the string coupling $g_s \sim 10^{-16}$, presumably…
Asymptotic safety describes a scenario in which general relativity can be quantized as a conventional field theory, despite being nonrenormalizable when expanding it around a fixed background geometry. It is formulated in the framework of…
4D Einstein gravity coupled to scalars and abelian gauge fields in its 2-Killing vector reduction is shown to be quasi-renormalizable to all loop orders at the expense of introducing infinitely many essential couplings. The latter can be…
We study a renormalizable, general theory of dilatonic gravity (with a kinetic-like term for the dilaton) interacting with scalar matter near two dimensions. The one-loop effective action and the beta functions for this general theory are…
Unimodular gravity is classically equivalent to General Relativity. This equivalence extends to actions which are functions of the curvature scalar. At the quantum level, the dynamics could differ. Most importantly, the cosmological…
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…
We use matrix model results to investigate the Sine-Gordon model coupled to two dimensional gravity. For relevant (in the RG sense) potentials, we show that the $c=1$ string, which appears in the ultraviolet limit of this model, flows to a…
We study the weak gravity conjecture in non-supersymmetric string theory setups. Precisely, those are type I string theory with supersymmetry broken \`a la Scherk-Schwarz and open strings on D branes wrapped around magnetized tori in type…
Recent studies of the ultraviolet behaviour of pure gravity suggest that it admits a non-Gaussian attractive fixed point, and therefore that the theory is asymptotically safe. We consider the effect on this fixed point of massless minimally…
This thesis is devoted to exploring various fundamental issues within asymptotic safety. Firstly, we study the reconstruction problem and present two ways in which to solve it within the context of scalar field theory, by utilising a…
The asymptotic safety scenario in gravity is accessed within the systematic vertex expansion scheme for functional renormalisation group flows put forward in \cite{Christiansen:2012rx,Christiansen:2014raa}, and implemented in…
Positivity bounds coming from consistency of UV scattering amplitudes are in general insufficient to prove the weak gravity conjecture for theories beyond Einstein-Maxwell. Additional ingredients about the UV may be necessary to exclude…
Strings propagating in three-dimensional anti-de Sitter space with a background antisymmetric tensor field are well understood, even at the quantum level. Pure three-dimensional gravity with a negative cosmological constant is potentially…
We consider a multiplicatively renormalizable higher-derivative scalar theory which is used as an effective theory for quantum gravity at large distances (infrared phase of quantum gravity). The asymptotic regimes (in particular, the…
We discuss the conceptual ideas underlying the Asymptotic Safety approach to the nonperturbative renormalization of gravity. By now numerous functional renormalization group studies predict the existence of a suitable nontrivial ultraviolet…