Background Independent Field Quantization with Sequences of Gravity-Coupled Approximants II: Metric Fluctuations

TL;DR

This paper applies a background-independent quantization scheme to quantum gravity, showing that metric fluctuations do not produce a cosmological constant problem and may favor flat space as the ground state.

Contribution

It introduces a background-independent regularization approach to quantum gravity and demonstrates that metric fluctuations do not lead to a large cosmological constant.

Findings

Metric fluctuations do not generate a cosmological constant problem.

Flat space emerges as a natural ground state of quantum gravity.

Background-dependent calculations may be invalid in this context.

Abstract

We apply the new quantization scheme outlined in Phys. Rev. D102 (2020) 125001 to explore the influence which quantum vacuum fluctuations of the spacetime metric exert on the universes of Quantum Einstein Gravity, which is regarded an effective theory here. The scheme promotes the principle of Background Independence to the level of the regularized precursors of a quantum field theory ("approximants") and severely constrains admissible regularization schemes. Without any tuning of parameters, we find that the zero point oscillations of linear gravitons on maximally symmetric spacetimes do not create the commonly expected cosmological constant problem of a cutoff-size curvature. On the contrary, metric fluctuations are found to reduce positive curvatures to arbitrarily tiny and ultimately vanishing values when the cutoff is lifted. This suggests that flat space could be the distinguished groundstate of pure quantum gravity. Our results contradict traditional beliefs founded upon background-dependent calculations whose validity must be called into question therefore.