Propagating gravitons vs. dark matter in asymptotically safe quantum gravity

Daniel Becker; Martin Reuter

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Propagating gravitons vs. dark matter in asymptotically safe quantum gravity

Daniel Becker, Martin Reuter

High Energy Physics - Theory · Submitted 22 Jul 2014

abstract compiled · 2026-09-23 · no language-model review

The authors' main claim We show that the problem disappears using the bi-metric renormalization group flows that became available recently: They admit an asymptotically safe UV limit and, at the same time, a genuine semi-classical regime with a positive anomalous dimension.

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What the abstract itself states, as probabilities: claims first 0.06 · states limitation 0.69 · human participants 0.01 · controlled comparison 0.08 · randomized assignment 0.01 · states quantitative result 0.04 · compares with prior results 0.95 · mentions code or data availability 0.02.

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Within the Asymptotic Safety scenario, we discuss whether Quantum Einstein Gravity (QEG) can give rise to a semi-classical regime of propagating physical gravitons (gravitational waves) governed by an effective theory which complies with the standard rules of local quantum field theory. According to earlier investigations based on single-metric truncations there is a tension between this requirement and the condition of Asymptotic Safety since the former (latter) requires a positive (negative) anomalous dimension of Newton's constant. We show that the problem disappears using the bi-metric renormalization group flows that became available recently: They admit an asymptotically safe UV limit and, at the same time, a genuine semi-classical regime with a positive anomalous dimension. This brings the gravitons of QEG on a par with arbitrary (standard model, etc.) particles which exist as asymptotic states. We also argue that metric perturbations on almost Planckian scales might not be propagating, and we propose an interpretation as a form of `dark matter'.

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What the classifier reports for each sentence. The number is the probability it gave the label.
#	sentence	role	the authors' own work	states the main conclusion	strength
s0	Within the Asymptotic Safety scenario, we discuss whether Quantum Einstein Gravity (QEG) can give rise to a semi-classical regime of propagating physical gravitons (gravitational waves) governed by an effective theory which complies with the standard rules of local quantum field theory.	background 0.80	0.17	0.05	hedged possibility 0.56
s1	According to earlier investigations based on single-metric truncations there is a tension between this requirement and the condition of Asymptotic Safety since the former (latter) requires a positive (negative) anomalous dimension of Newton's constant.	background 0.97	0.04	0.04	asserted 0.91
s2	We show that the problem disappears using the bi-metric renormalization group flows that became available recently: They admit an asymptotically safe UV limit and, at the same time, a genuine semi-classical regime with a positive anomalous dimension.	result 0.82	0.92	0.72	asserted 1.00
s3	This brings the gravitons of QEG on a par with arbitrary (standard model, etc.) particles which exist as asymptotic states.	interpretation 0.98	0.72	0.26	asserted 0.99
s4	We also argue that metric perturbations on almost Planckian scales might not be propagating, and we propose an interpretation as a form of `dark matter'.	interpretation 0.93	0.66	0.10	speculative 0.78

What kind of paper the classifier reports this is: theoretical result 0.99 · evidence from proof or derivation 0.60.

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Original abstract

Within the Asymptotic Safety scenario, we discuss whether Quantum Einstein Gravity (QEG) can give rise to a semi-classical regime of propagating physical gravitons (gravitational waves) governed by an effective theory which complies with the standard rules of local quantum field theory. According to earlier investigations based on single-metric truncations there is a tension between this requirement and the condition of Asymptotic Safety since the former (latter) requires a positive (negative) anomalous dimension of Newton's constant. We show that the problem disappears using the bi-metric renormalization group flows that became available recently: They admit an asymptotically safe UV limit and, at the same time, a genuine semi-classical regime with a positive anomalous dimension. This brings the gravitons of QEG on a par with arbitrary (standard model, etc.) particles which exist as asymptotic states. We also argue that metric perturbations on almost Planckian scales might not be propagating, and we propose an interpretation as a form of `dark matter'.

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References

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Cited by 10 Pith papers

Reviewed papers in the Pith corpus that reference this work. Sorted by Pith novelty score. Full citation record

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The fluctuation graviton's spectral function in asymptotically safe gravity is reconstructed as positive, while the background graviton's is proved to have negative parts and vanishing total weight.
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The curvature-cubed counterterm that makes gravity perturbatively non-renormalizable turns out to be an irrelevant operator at the asymptotically safe fixed point, so it does not spoil the ultraviolet completion.

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Effective universality in quantum gravity
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In a truncated functional renormalization group study of scalar-gravity, the three-graviton and graviton-scalar avatars of the Newton coupling agree quantitatively at the UV fixed point in the quenched limit, and only...
Renormalization group fixed points of foliated gravity-matter systems
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Quantum gravity: a fluctuating point of view
hep-th 2020-07 accept novelty 3.0 of 10

A vertex expansion in graviton fluctuation correlation functions, truncated at the four-point level, reproduces the Reuter ultraviolet fixed point with three attractive directions and shows signs of apparent convergence.

How the literature uses it

19 arXiv papers cite this in 21 sentences

Each citing sentence is taken from the citing paper's LaTeX source and typed by Pith's classifier. A label appears at probability 0.8 or more (0.95 for support), a contest at 0.7 or more; the quoted words are the citing authors'. How each label was checked · JSON

Papers citing it · 12 sentences without a confident label

Compares with it 1 paper

Notably, this is the same type of UV-attractive spiraling behavior encountered when evaluating the RG flow on foliated spacetimes using the Matsubara formalism [ref] , and a vast range of studies building on the metric formalism [ref] .

Renormalization group fixed points of foliated gravity-matter systems · Pure gravity · 0.96

Cites it as support 1 paper

The prospect that Asymptotic Safety could be capable of describing gravitational force at all length scales makes the theory quite attractive for cosmological model building [ref] .

Asymptotically safe cosmology - a status report · Asymptotic Safety: a brief introduction · 0.97

Cites it as background 7 papers

As mentioned there, by now there are studies going significantly beyond the single field approximation in different ways such as [ref] , but none of them allow to draw definite conclusions as to effects of the approximation for the $f(R)$ truncation.

Functional truncations in asymptotic safety for quantum gravity · Breakdown of the $f(R)$ approximation · 0.88
Related approaches are bimetric calculations [ref] and efforts to solve the Nielsen identity directly or indirectly [ref] .

Infinite order quantum-gravitational correlations · Nielsen identity · 0.97
Here we simply comment on the physics content of the graviton spectral functions, see also [ref] .

Quantum gravity: a fluctuating point of view · Momentum dependence & unitarity · 0.94

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