Monday, September 24, 2012

1209.4779 (Anja Marunovic et al.)

On antiscreening in perturbative quantum gravity and resolving the
Newtonian singularity
   [PDF]

Anja Marunovic, Tomislav Prokopec
We calculate the quantum corrections to the Newtonian potential induced by a massless, nonminimally coupled scalar field on Minkowski background. We make use of the graviton vacuum polarization calculated in our previous work and solve the equation of motion non-perturbatively. When written as the quantum-corrected gauge invariant Bardeen potentials, our results show that quantum effects generically antiscreen the Newtonian singularity 1/r. This result supports the point of view that gravity on (super-)Planckian scales is an asymptotically safe theory. In addition, we show that, in the presence of quantum fluctuations of a massless, (non)minimally coupled scalar field, dynamical gravitons propagate superluminally. The effect is, however, unbservably small and it is hence of academic interest only.
View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1209.4779

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