The renormalization group flow of the dilaton potential

TL;DR

This paper investigates how the renormalization group flow of the dilaton potential in a scalar-metric gravity theory affects particle masses and unitarity, considering threshold effects at the Planck scale.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed analysis of the RG flow of the dilaton potential with threshold effects, highlighting implications for particle propagation and unitarity.

Findings

Running of the dilaton VEV can prevent propagation of seemingly super-Planckian particles

Threshold effects influence the RG flow of the dilaton potential

Potential resolution of unitarity issues in scalar-metric gravity theories

Abstract

We consider a scalar-metric gauge theory of gravity with independent metric, connection and dilaton. The role of the dilaton is to provide the scale of all masses, via its vacuum expectation value. In this theory, we study the renormalization group flow of the dilaton potential, taking into account threshold effects at the Planck scale. Due to the running of the VEV of the dilaton all particles that would naively seem to have masses larger than Planck's mass, may actually not propagate. This could solve the problem of unitarity in these theories.