Covariant computation of effective actions in Hořava-Lifshitz gravity

Abstract

Abstract: We initiate the systematic computation of the heat-kernel coefficients for Laplacian operators obeying anisotropic dispersion relations in curved spacetime. Our results correctly reproduce the limit where isotropy is restored and special anisotropic cases considered previously in the literature. Subsequently, the heat kernel is used to derive the scalar-induced one-loop effective action and beta functions of Hořava-Lifshitz gravity. We identify the Gaussian fixed point which is supposed to provide the UV completion of the theory. In the present setting, this fixed point acts as an infrared attractor for the renormalization group flow of Newton’s constant and the high-energy phase of the theory is screened by a Landau pole. We comment on the consequences of these findings for the renormalizability of the theory.