Speaker
Marco Piva
(Penn State University)
Description
In this talk I will expose the features of a new local higher-derivative theory of quantum gravity. The model is based on the concept of “fakeons” or “fake degrees of freedom”, which solves the problem of ghosts and leads to a unitary, renormalizable theory. In particular, I will show the absorptive part of the graviton self-energy at one loop and its contributions to the effective action, both in pure gravity and in the theory coupled with any type of matter field. I will point out the differences with respect to the usual treatment of higher-derivative gravity and some phenomenological implications. Finally, possible applications in cosmological pertrubation theory will be addressed.
