The asymptotic safety scenario and scalar field inflation

We study quantum gravity corrections to early universe cosmology as resulting within the asymptotic safety scenario. We analyse if it is possible to obtain accelerated expansion in the regime of the renormalisation group fixed point in a theory with Einstein-Hilbert gravity and a scalar field. We show how this phase impacts cosmological perturbations observed in the cosmic microwave background.Comment: Contribution to the proceedings of the Thirteenth Marcel Grossmann Meeting, Stockholm, 201

Investigating the Ultraviolet Properties of Gravity with a Wilsonian Renormalization Group Equation

We review and extend in several directions recent results on the asymptotic safety approach to quantum gravity. The central issue in this approach is the search of a Fixed Point having suitable properties, and the tool that is used is a type of Wilsonian renormalization group equation. This will be reviewed in chapter 2 after a general overview in the introductory chapter 1. Then we discuss various cutoff schemes, i.e. ways of implementing the Wilsonian cutoff procedure. We compare the beta functions of the gravitational couplings obtained with different schemes, studying first the contribution of matter fields and then the so\u2013called Einstein\u2013Hilbert truncation in chapter 3, where only the cosmological constant and Newton\u2019s constant are retained. In this context we make connection with old results, in particular we reproduce the results of the epsilon expansion and the perturbative one loop divergences. We discuss some possible phenomenological consequences leading to modified dispersion relations and show connections to phenomenological models where Lorentz invariance is either broken or deformed. We then apply the Renormalization Group to higher derivative gravity in chapter 4. In the case of a general action quadratic in curvature we recover, within certain approximations, the known asymptotic freedom of the four\u2013derivative terms, while Newton\u2019s constant and the cosmological constant have a nontrivial fixed point. In the case of actions that are polynomials in the scalar curvature of degree up to eight we find that the theory has a fixed point with three UV\u2013attractive directions, so that the requirement of having a continuum limit constrains the couplings to lie in a three\u2013dimensional subspace, whose equation is explicitly given. We emphasize throughout the difference between scheme\u2013dependent and scheme\u2013independent results, and provide several examples of the fact that only dimensionless couplings can have \u201cuniversal\u201d behavior

Asymptotically Safe Cosmology

We study quantum modifications to cosmology in a Friedmann-Robertson-Walker universe with and without scalar fields by taking the renormalisation group running of gravitational and matter couplings into account. We exploit the Bianchi identity to relate the renormalisation group scale with scale factor and derive the improved cosmological evolution equations. We find two types of cosmological fixed points where the renormalisation group scale either freezes in, or continues to evolve with scale factor. We discuss the implications of each of these, and classify the different cosmological fixed points with and without gravity displaying an asymptotically safe renormalisation group fixed point. We state conditions of existence for an inflating ultraviolet cosmological fixed point for Einstein gravity coupled to a scalar field. We also discuss other fixed point solutions such as "scaling" solutions, or fixed points with equipartition between kinetic and potential energies.Comment: 8 pages; v2: explanations and references added, accepted for publication in JCA

Investigating the Ultraviolet Properties of Gravity with a Wilsonian Renormalization Group Equation

We review and extend in several directions recent results on the asymptotic safety approach to quantum gravity. The central issue in this approach is the search of a Fixed Point having suitable properties, and the tool that is used is a type of Wilsonian renormalization group equation. We begin by discussing various cutoff schemes, i.e. ways of implementing the Wilsonian cutoff procedure. We compare the beta functions of the gravitational couplings obtained with different schemes, studying first the contribution of matter fields and then the so-called Einstein-Hilbert truncation, where only the cosmological constant and Newton's constant are retained. In this context we make connection with old results, in particular we reproduce the results of the epsilon expansion and the perturbative one loop divergences. We then apply the Renormalization Group to higher derivative gravity. In the case of a general action quadratic in curvature we recover, within certain approximations, the known asymptotic freedom of the four-derivative terms, while Newton's constant and the cosmological constant have a nontrivial fixed point. In the case of actions that are polynomials in the scalar curvature of degree up to eight we find that the theory has a fixed point with three UV-attractive directions, so that the requirement of having a continuum limit constrains the couplings to lie in a three-dimensional subspace, whose equation is explicitly given. We emphasize throughout the difference between scheme-dependent and scheme-independent results, and provide several examples of the fact that only dimensionless couplings can have "universal" behavior.Comment: 86 pages, 13 figures, equation (71) corrected, references added, some other minor changes. v.5: further minor corrections to eqs. (20), (76), (91), (94), (A9), Tables II, III, Appendix

Ultraviolet properties of f(R)-Gravity

We discuss the existence and properties of a nontrivial fixed point in f(R)-gravity, where f is a polynomial of order up to six. Within this seven-parameter class of theories, the fixed point has three ultraviolet-attractive and four ultraviolet-repulsive directions; this brings further support to the hypothesis that gravity is nonperturbatively renormalizabile.Comment: 4 page

Emergent Complex Network Geometry

Networks are mathematical structures that are universally used to describe a large variety of complex systems such as the brain or the Internet. Characterizing the geometrical properties of these networks has become increasingly relevant for routing problems, inference and data mining. In real growing networks, topological, structural and geometrical properties emerge spontaneously from their dynamical rules. Nevertheless we still miss a model in which networks develop an emergent complex geometry. Here we show that a single two parameter network model, the growing geometrical network, can generate complex network geometries with non-trivial distribution of curvatures, combining exponential growth and small-world properties with finite spectral dimensionality. In one limit, the non-equilibrium dynamical rules of these networks can generate scale-free networks with clustering and communities, in another limit planar random geometries with non-trivial modularity. Finally we find that these properties of the geometrical growing networks are present in a large set of real networks describing biological, social and technological systems.Comment: (24 pages, 7 figures, 1 table

Complex Quantum Network Manifolds in Dimension d > 2 are Scale-Free

In quantum gravity, several approaches have been proposed until now for the quantum description of discrete geometries. These theoretical frameworks include loop quantum gravity, causal dynamical triangulations, causal sets, quantum graphity, and energetic spin networks. Most of these approaches describe discrete spaces as homogeneous network manifolds. Here we define Complex Quantum Network Manifolds (CQNM) describing the evolution of quantum network states, and constructed from growing simplicial complexes of dimension d. We show that in d = 2 CQNM are homogeneous networks while for d > 2 they are scale-free i.e. they are characterized by large inhomogeneities of degrees like most complex networks. From the self-organized evolution of CQNM quantum statistics emerge spontaneously. Here we define the generalized degrees associated with the δ-faces of the d-dimensional CQNMs, and we show that the statistics of these generalized degrees can either follow Fermi-Dirac, Boltzmann or Bose-Einstein distributions depending on the dimension of the δ-faces

Renormalisation group improvement of scalar field inflation

We study quantum corrections to Friedmann-Robertson-Walker cosmology with a scalar field under the assumption that the dynamics are subject to renormalisation group improvement. We use the Bianchi identity to relate the renormalisation group scale to the scale factor and obtain the improved cosmological evolution equations. We study the solutions of these equations in the renormalisation group fixed point regime, obtaining the time-dependence of the scalar field strength and the Hubble parameter in specific models with monomial and trinomial quartic scalar field potentials. We find that power-law inflation can be achieved in the renormalisation group fixed point regime with the trinomial potential, but not with the monomial one. We study the transition to the quasi-classical regime, where the quantum corrections to the couplings become small, and find classical dynamics as an attractor solution for late times. We show that the solution found in the renormalisation group fixed point regime is also a cosmological fixed point in the autonomous phase space. We derive the power spectrum of cosmological perturbations and find that the scalar power spectrum is exactly scale-invariant and bounded up to arbitrarily small times, while the tensor perturbations are tilted as appropriate for the background power-law inflation. We specify conditions for the renormalisation group fixed point values of the couplings under which the amplitudes of the cosmological perturbations remain small.Comment: 17 pages; 2 figure