On Characterizing the Quantum Geometry Underlying Asymptotic Safety

Abstract

The asymptotic safety program builds on a high-energy completion of gravity based on the Reuter fixed point, a non-trivial fixed point of the gravitational renormalization group flow. At this fixed point the canonical mass-dimension of coupling constants is balanced by anomalous dimensions induced by quantum fluctuations such that the theory enjoys quantum scale invariance in the ultraviolet. The crucial role played by the quantum fluctuations suggests that the geometry associated with the fixed point exhibits non-manifold like properties. In this work, we continue the characterization of this geometry employing the composite operator formalism based on the effective average action. Explicitly, we give a relation between the anomalous dimensions of geometric operators on a background d-sphere and the stability matrix encoding the linearized renormalization group flow in the vicinity of the fixed point. The eigenvalue spectrum of the stability matrix is analyzed in detail and we identify a “perturbative regime” where the spectral properties are governed by canonical power counting. Our results recover the feature that quantum gravity fluctuations turn the (classically marginal) R2-operator into a relevant one. Moreover, we find strong indications that higher-order curvature terms present in the two-point function play a crucial role in guaranteeing the predictive power of the Reuter fixed point.