Conformal anomalies and the Einstein Field Equations

TL;DR

This paper investigates how conformal anomalies induce significant corrections to Einstein's field equations, analyzing both non-local and local effective actions related to the type A conformal anomaly.

Contribution

It provides a detailed computation of anomaly-induced corrections to Einstein's equations from both non-local and local effective actions, highlighting their potential magnitude.

Findings

Corrections to Einstein's equations can be very large due to conformal anomalies.

Both non-local Riegert action and local dilaton action are considered.

Anomaly-induced effects may have significant implications for gravitational physics.

Abstract

We compute corrections to the Einstein field equations which are induced by the anomalous effective actions associated to the type A conformal anomaly, both for the (non-local) Riegert action, as well as for the local action with dilaton. In all cases considered we find that these corrections can be very large.