Two-Form Gravity and the Generation of Space-Time

Abstract

In the framework of the two-form gravity, which is classically equivalent to the Einstein gravity, the one-loop effective potential for the conformal factor of metric is calculated in the finite volume and in the finite temperature by choosing a temporal gauge condition. There appears a quartically divergent term which cannot be removed by the renormalization of the cosmological term and we find there is only one non-trivial minimum in the effective potential. If the cut-off scale has a physical meaning, \eg the Planck scale coming from string theory, this minimum might explain why the space-time is generated, \ie why the classical metric has a non-trivial value.

Latex file, 18pp