English

A candidate for an UV completion: quadratic gravity in first order formalism

High Energy Physics - Theory 2017-10-06 v1

Abstract

We consider the most general action for gravity which is quadratic in curvature. In this case first order and second order formalisms are not equivalent. This framework is a good candidate for a unitary and renormalizable theory of the gravitational field; in particular, there are no propagators falling down faster than 1p2\tfrac{1}{p^2}. The UV regime is in a conformal invariant phase; only when Weyl invariance is broken through the coupling to matter can an Einstein-Hilbert term (and its corresponding Planck mass scale) be generated.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1710.01764,
  title  = {A candidate for an UV completion: quadratic gravity in first order formalism},
  author = {Enrique Alvarez and Jesus Anero and Sergio Gonzalez-Martin and Raquel Santos-Garcia},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1710.01764},
  year   = {2017}
}

Comments

4 pages, presented by E.A at the 18th Lomonosov conference

R2 v1 2026-06-22T22:03:57.683Z