Taming perturbative divergences in asymptotically safe gravity

TL;DR

This paper investigates the asymptotic safety of gravity coupled to a scalar field using functional renormalization group methods, demonstrating the existence of a non-trivial UV fixed point that addresses perturbative divergences.

Contribution

It provides evidence for a non-trivial UV fixed point in asymptotically safe gravity, showing counterterms do not affect this fixed point within the considered truncations.

Findings

Existence of a non-trivial UV fixed point in the model

Counterterms do not qualitatively affect the fixed point

Supports the asymptotic safety conjecture for gravity

Abstract

We use functional renormalization group methods to study gravity minimally coupled to a free scalar field. This setup provides the prototype of a gravitational theory which is perturbatively non-renormalizable at one-loop level, but may possess a non-trivial renormalization group fixed point controlling its UV behavior. We show that such a fixed point indeed exists within the truncations considered, lending strong support to the conjectured asymptotic safety of the theory. In particular, we demonstrate that the counterterms responsible for its perturbative non-renormalizability have no qualitative effect on this feature.