Ambiguities in the gravitational correction of quantum electrodynamics

TL;DR

This paper critically examines the gravitational corrections to QED, demonstrating that the quadratic divergences are regularization dependent, gauge dependent, and do not necessarily imply asymptotic freedom at the Planck scale.

Contribution

It clarifies the nature of gravitational corrections in QED, showing they are arbitrary and gauge dependent, challenging previous conjectures about asymptotic freedom.

Findings

Quadratic divergences are regularization dependent.

Such divergences are compatible with zero.

The contributions are gauge dependent in the gravitational sector.

Abstract

We verify that quadratic divergences stemming from gravitational corrections to QED which have been conjectured to lead to asymptotic freedom near Planck scale are arbitrary (regularization dependent) and compatible with zero. Moreover we explicitly show that such arbitrary term contributes to the beta function of QED in a gauge dependent way in the gravitational sector.