Leading Logarithm Quantum Gravity

Abstract

The continual production of long wavelength gravitons during primordial inflation endows graviton loop corrections with secular growth factors. During a prolonged period of inflation these factors eventually overwhelm the small loop-counting parameter of $G{H}^2$, causing perturbation theory to break down. A technique was recently developed for summing the leading secular effects at each order in non-linear sigma models, which possess the same kind of derivative interactions as gravity. This technique combines a variant of Starobinsky's stochastic formalism with a variant of the renormalization group. We generalize the new technique to quantum gravity, resulting in a Langevin equation in which secular changes in gravitational phenomena are driven by stochastic fluctuations of the graviton field.

25 pages