Dilatonic gravity near two dimensions as a string theory

Using the renormalization-group formalism, a sigma model of a special type- in which the metric and the dilaton depend explicitly on one of the string coordinates only-is investigated near two dimensions. It is seen that dilatonic gravity coupled to N scalar fields can be expressed in this form, using a string parametrization, and that it possesses the usual UV fixed point. However,in this stringy parametrization of the theory the fixed point for the scalar-dilaton coupling turns out to be trivial, while the fixed point for the gravitational coupling remains to be the same as in previous studies being, in particular, non-trivial.