Quantum gravity at astrophysical distances?

By Martin Reuter, H. Weyer. 2004

157 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Assuming that quantum Einstein gravity (QEG) is the correct theory of gravity on all length scales, we use analytical results from nonperturbative renormalization group (RG) equations as well as experimental input in order to characterize the special RG trajectory of QEG which is realized in Nature and to determine its parameters. On this trajectory, we identify a regime of scales where gravitational physics is well described by classical general relativity. Strong renormalization effects occur at both larger and smaller momentum scales. The latter lead to a growth of Newton’s constant at large distances. We argue that this effect becomes visible at the scale of galaxies and could provide a solution to the astrophysical missing mass problem which does not require any dark matter. We show that an extremely weak power law running of Newton’s constant leads to flat galaxy rotation curves similar to those observed in Nature. Furthermore, a possible resolution of the cosmological constant problem is proposed by noting that all RG trajectories admitting a long classical regime automatically give rise to a small cosmological constant.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Nuclear and High Energy Physics, Statistical and Nonlinear Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/196ad72145ca0e7329fc1224d6a29d59240b22dd

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Citations in the corpus

Galaxy Rotation Curves without Nonbaryonic Dark Matter (2005, methodology): “A renormalization group (RG) framework (Reuter & Weyer 2004a, 2004b) for MSTGwas developed to describe the running of the effective gravitational coupling constant G and the effective coupling constant c, which measures the strength of the coupling of theF k field tomatter.”
The Asymptotic Safety Scenario in Quantum Gravity (2006, methodology): “For an illustration [189, 191, 190] consider a truncated solution of the FRGE (C.”
Spin-half fermions with mass dimension one: theory, phenomenology, and dark matter (2004, background): “Furthermore, while a vast majority of the physics community seems to be convinced of the existence of dark matter it is important to remain open to the possibility that in part, if not in its entirety, the dark matter problem may be a reflection of the growth of the Newtonian constant at astrophysic”
Categorizing Different Approaches to the Cosmological Constant Problem (2004, background): “In [80, 81, 82, 83, 84] a related screening of the cosmological constant is studied, viewing Λ as a parameter subject to renormalization group running.”
Asymptotic safety in the f(R) approximation (2012, background): “There are also phenomenological constraints, for example it has to allow a renormalised trajectory with classical-like behaviour in the infrared, as emphasised in [9, 10].”
Galaxy cluster masses without non-baryonic dark matter (2005, methodology): “A renormalization group (RG) framework (Reuter & Weyer 2004a,b) for MSTG was developed to describe the running of the effective gravitational coupling constant G, and the effective coupling constant γ c that measures the strength of the coupling of the Fμνλ field to matter.”