Engineering topics

Manrique, Elisa

Publications and source records attributed to Manrique, Elisa.

3 records

DOE OSTI2011

Asymptotically Safe Lorentzian Gravity

The gravitational asymptotic safety program strives for a consistent and predictive quantum theory of gravity based on a nontrivial ultraviolet fixed point of the renormalization group (RG) flow. We investigate this scenario by employing a novel functional renormalization group equation which takes the causal structure of space-time into account and connects the RG flows for Euclidean and Lorentzian signature by a Wick rotation. Within the Einstein-Hilbert approximation, the {beta} functions of both signatures exhibit ultraviolet fixed points in agreement with asymptotic safety. Surprisingly, the two fixed points have strikingly similar characteristics, suggesting that Euclidean and Lorentzian quantum gravity belong to the same universality class at high energies.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

DOE OSTI2011

Matter induced bimetric actions for gravity

Research Highlights: > Gravitational effective action in the bimetric truncation. > RG flow in the large N limit of matter coupled to gravity. > Asymptotically safe theory found in the large N expansion. - Abstract: The gravitational effective average action is studied in a bimetric truncation with a nontrivial background field dependence, and its renormalization group flow due to a scalar multiplet coupled to gravity is derived. Neglecting the metric contributions to the corresponding beta functions, the analysis of its fixed points reveals that, even on the new enlarged theory space which includes bimetric action functionals, the theory is asymptotically safe in the large N expansion.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

DOE OSTI2011

Bimetric renormalization group flows in quantum Einstein gravity

Research Highlights: > Gravitational Effective Action in the bimetric truncation. > First study of the full gravitational flow with a bimetric structure. > The non-trivial gravitational RG fixed point persists under bimetric truncations. > Second non-trivial fixed point emerges, which may control the IR behavior of the theory. - Abstract: The formulation of an exact functional renormalization group equation for quantum Einstein gravity necessitates that the underlying effective average action depends on two metrics, a dynamical metric giving the vacuum expectation value of the quantum field, and a background metric supplying the coarse graining scale. The central requirement of 'background independence' is met by leaving the background metric completely arbitrary. This bimetric structure entails that the effective average action may contain three classes of interactions: those built from the dynamical metric only, terms which are purely background, and those involving a mixture of both metrics. This work initiates the first study of the full-fledged gravitational RG flow, which explicitly accounts for this bimetric structure, by considering an ansatz for the effective average action which includes all three classes of interactions. It is shown that the non-trivial gravitational RG fixed point central to the asymptotic safety program persists upon disentangling the dynamical and background terms. Moreover, upon including the mixed terms, a second non-trivial fixed point emerges, which may control the theory's IR behavior.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗