English

Fixed points of classical gravity coupled with a Standard-Model-like theory

High Energy Physics - Theory 2025-09-12 v1 General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology High Energy Physics - Phenomenology

Abstract

Coupling quantum field theory (QFT) \!-\! even free QFT \!-\! to gravity leads to well-known problems. In particular, the stress tensor TμνT_{\mu\nu} (gravity's source) and its correlators typically diverge in the UV, creating a conflict between the wildly inhomogeneous spacetime we expect quantum mechanically and the weakly-curved, macroscopic spacetime we observe. Are there QFTs for which these divergences cancel? Here, for simplicity, we consider free quantum fields on a classical curved background. The aforementioned divergences are related to the running of the gravitational couplings. We calculate the corresponding beta functions, identifying a special class of QFTs with UV fixed points at which Tμν\langle T_{\mu\nu}\rangle and all its correlators TT\langle T\ldots T\rangle are UV finite. An intriguing example is a theory like the Standard Model (including right-handed neutrinos) with 1212 gauge fields, 33 generations of 1616 Weyl fermions and 3636 four-derivative (Fradkin-Tseytlin) scalars. In the infrared, this theory has a positive Newton's constant GG and an arbitrarily small cosmological constant Λ\Lambda.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2509.09346,
  title  = {Fixed points of classical gravity coupled with a Standard-Model-like theory},
  author = {Latham Boyle and Neil Turok and Vatsalya Vaibhav},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2509.09346},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

7 pages, 1 figure

R2 v1 2026-07-01T05:31:50.255Z