Quantum gravity corrections to the conformally coupled scalar self-mass-squared on de Sitter background

TL;DR

This paper calculates one-loop quantum gravity corrections to a conformally coupled scalar field's self-mass-squared on de Sitter space, focusing on the conformal-conformal interaction, with implications for scalar mode functions and power spectra.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed computation of quantum gravity corrections to the conformally coupled scalar self-mass-squared on de Sitter space at one loop.

Findings

Results are fully renormalized and finite.

Quantum corrections may affect scalar mode functions.

Part of a series, with future work to include minimal-conformal interactions.

Abstract

We evaluate one loop quantum gravity corrections to the conformally coupled (CC) scalar self-mass-squared on a locally de Sitter background. In this paper we consider only the conformal-conformal interaction part of the self-mass-squared. This complements the minimal-minimal part worked out in the previous paper [E. O. Kahya and R. P. Woodard, Phys. Rev. D 76, 124005 (2007), arXiv: 0709.0536], and we will add the minimal-conformal part in a follow-up paper to complete the full self-mass-squared at one loop order. The computation is performed using dimensional regularization and the results are fully renormalized by absorbing divergences with counterterms. The finite results can give rise to quantum corrections to the CC scalar mode functions and therefore to their power spectra.