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arXiv · 2110.10160

Scale vs. Conformal Invariance at the IR Fixed Point of Quantum Gravity

Kara Farnsworth·Kurt Hinterbichler·Ondrej Hulik
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Abstract

We examine the question of scale vs. conformal invariance for the linearized Einstein-Hilbert action, which describes the IR fixed point of quantum gravity. In $D = 4$, although the action is not conformally invariant in the usual sense, we explicitly show that the theory is a conformal field theory at the level of correlation functions. In higher dimensions, we show that the theory is scale but not conformally invariant, but can be embedded into a larger non-unitary conformal field theory, analogous to what has been found for Maxwell theory in $D>4$. We give evidence that similar statements are true for all free higher spin theories.

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Kara Farnsworth, Kurt Hinterbichler, Ondrej Hulik. 2021-10-19. Scale vs. Conformal Invariance at the IR Fixed Point of Quantum Gravity. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevd.105.066026

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