Asymptotically nonlocal gravity

We study the field theoretical description of a generic theory of gravity flowing to Einstein General Relativity in IR. We prove that, if ghost-free, in the weakly coupled regime such a theory can never become weaker than General Relativity. Using this fact, as a byproduct, we suggest that in a ghost-free theory of gravity trans-Planckian propagating quantum degrees of freedom cannot exist. The only physical meaning of a trans-Planckian pole is the one of a classical state (B...

We prove in two ways that, for a special class of nonlocal field theories consistent with linear and non-linear stability at the classical level, and with unitarity and super-renormalizability or finiteness at the quantum level, the $n$-point tree-level scattering amplitudes are the same as those of the underlying local theory. In particular, the $n$-point amplitudes of nonlocal gravity, with or without coupling to matter, are the same as for Einstein's general relativity.

We use functional renormalization group methods to study gravity minimally coupled to a free scalar field. This setup provides the prototype of a gravitational theory which is perturbatively non-renormalizable at one-loop level, but may possess a non-trivial renormalization group fixed point controlling its UV behavior. We show that such a fixed point indeed exists within the truncations considered, lending strong support to the conjectured asymptotic safety of the theory. In...

In this paper we will show an ultraviolet -infrared connection for ghost-free infinite derivative field theories where the Lagrangians are made up of exponentials of entire functions. In particular, for $N$-point amplitudes a new scale emerges in the infrared from the ultraviolet, i.e. $M_{\rm eff}\sim M_s/N^\alpha,$ where $M_s$ is the fundamental scale beyond the Standard Model, and $\alpha>0$ depends on the specific choice of an entire function and on whether we consider ze...

In this paper we will study for the first time how the wave-packet of a self-gravitating meso-scopic system spreads in theories beyond Einstein's general relativity. In particular, we will consider a ghost-free infinite derivative gravity, which resolves the $1/r$ singularity in the potential - such that the gradient of the potential vanishes within the scale of non-locality. We will show that a quantum wave-packet spreads faster for a ghost-free and singularity-free gravity ...

We present a short and intuitive argument explaining why gravity is non-renormalizable. The argument is based on black-hole domination of the high energy spectrum of gravity and not on the standard perturbative irrelevance of the gravitational coupling. This is a pedagogical note, containing textbook material that is widely appreciated by experts and is by no means original.

This chapter of the Handbook of Quantum Gravity aims to illustrate how nonlocality can be implemented in field theories, as well as the manner it solves fundamental difficulties of gravitational theories. We review Stelle's quadratic gravity, which achieves multiplicative renormalizability successfully to remove quantum divergences by modifying the Einstein's action but at the price of breaking the unitarity of the theory and introducing Ostrogradski's ghosts. Utilizing nonlo...

In this paper we show that there is a universal prediction for the Newtonian potential for an infinite derivative, ghost-free, quadratic curvature gravity. We show that in order to make such a theory ghost-free at a perturbative level, the Newtonian potential always falls-off as 1/r in the infrared limit, while at short distances the potential becomes non-singular. We provide examples which can potentially test the scale of gravitational non-locality up to 0.004 eV.

We propose a nonlocal field theory for gravity in presence of matter consistent with perturbative unitarity, quantum finiteness, and other essential classical properties that we are going to list below. First, the theory exactly reproduces the same tree-level scattering amplitudes of Einstein's gravity coupled to matter insuring no violation of macro-causality. Second, all the exact solutions of the Einstein's theory are also exact solutions of the nonlocal theory. Finally, a...

We investigate the non-perturbative degrees of freedom of a class of weakly non-local gravitational theories that have been proposed as an ultraviolet completion of general relativity. At the perturbative level, it is known that the degrees of freedom of non-local gravity are the same of the Einstein--Hilbert theory around any maximally symmetric spacetime. We prove that, at the non-perturbative level, the degrees of freedom are actually eight in four dimensions, contrary to ...