Falls, Kevin, King, Callum R, Litim, Daniel F, Nikolakopoulos, Konstas and Rahmede, Christoph (2018) Asymptotic safety of quantum gravity beyond Ricci scalars. Physical Review D, 97 (8). 086006-1-34. ISSN 2470-0010

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Abstract

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 Ricci tensor, and products thereof. Combining functional renormalization with high order polynomial approximations and full numerical integration we derive the renormalization group flow for all couplings and analyse their fixed points, scaling exponents, and the fixed point effective action as a function of the background Ricci curvature. The theory is characterized by three relevant couplings. Higher-dimensional couplings show near-Gaussian scaling with increasing canonical mass dimension. We find that Ricci tensor invariants stabilize the UV fixed point and lead to a rapid convergence of polynomial approximations. We apply our results to models for cosmology and establish that the gravitational fixed point admits inflationary solutions. We also compare findings with those from fðRÞ-type theories in the same approximation and pin-point the key new effects due to Ricci tensor interactions. Implications for the asymptotic safety conjecture of gravity are indicated.

Item Type:	Article
Schools and Departments:	School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences > Physics and Astronomy
Research Centres and Groups:	Theoretical Particle Physics Research Group
Subjects:	Q Science > QB Astronomy Q Science > QC Physics
Depositing User:	Alice Jackson
Date Deposited:	02 Jul 2019 14:11
Last Modified:	02 Jul 2019 14:15
URI:	http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/84702

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