Divergences and Boundary Modes in N=8 Supergravity

TL;DR

This paper investigates the one-loop divergences in N=8 supergravity, revealing boundary modes' role in quantum inequivalence and analyzing the effective potential's implications for the cosmological constant in AdS4.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of boundary modes and their impact on quantum inequivalence in N=8 supergravity, with new insights into divergences and the effective potential in AdS4.

Findings

Boundary modes cause quantum inequivalence between dual fields.

The effective potential indicates logarithmic running of the cosmological constant.

Differences between global and thermal AdS4 affect divergence calculations.

Abstract

We reconsider the one loop divergence of ${\cal N}=8$ supergravity in four dimensions. We compute the finite effective potential of ${\cal N}=8$ anti-deSitter supergravity and interpret it as logarithmic running of the cosmological constant. We find that quantum inequivalence between fields that are classically dual is due to boundary modes in AdS$_4$. Some subtleties are traced to the difference between the Euler characteristic of global and thermal AdS$_4$.