• DOI:10.1103/PhysRevD.65.025013
• Corpus ID: 1926982

Ultraviolet fixed point and generalized flow equation of quantum gravity

@article{Lauscher2001UltravioletFP,
  title={Ultraviolet fixed point and generalized flow equation of quantum gravity},
  author={Oliver Lauscher and Martin Reuter},
  journal={Physical Review D},
  year={2001},
  volume={65},
  pages={025013}
}

• O. Lauscher, M. Reuter
• Published 7 August 2001
• Physics
• Physical Review D

A new exact renormalization group equation for the effective average action of Euclidean quantum gravity is constructed. It is formulated in terms of the component fields appearing in the transverse-traceless decomposition of the metric. It facilitates both the construction of an appropriate infrared cutoff and the projection of the renormalization group flow onto a large class of truncated parameter spaces. The Einstein-Hilbert truncation is investigated in detail and the fixed point structure of the resulting flow is analyzed. Both a Gaussian and a non-Gaussian fixed point are found. If the non-Gaussian fixed point is present in the exact theory, quantum Einstein gravity is likely to be renormalizable at the nonperturbative level. In order to assess the reliability of the truncation a comprehensive analysis of the scheme dependence of universal quantities is performed. We find strong evidence supporting the hypothesis that 4-dimensional Einstein gravity is asymptotically safe, i.e. nonperturbatively renormalizable. The renormalization group improvement of the graviton propagator suggests a kind of dimensional reduction from 4 to 2 dimensions when spacetime is probed at sub-Planckian length scales.