Vertex operators in 4D quantum gravity formulated as CFT

Geometry and quantization, symplectic methods (81S10) Path integrals in quantum mechanics (81S40) Quantum field theory on curved space or space-time backgrounds (81T20) Two-dimensional field theories, conformal field theories, etc. in quantum mechanics (81T40) Einstein's equations (general structure, canonical formalism, Cauchy problems) (83C05) Quantization of the gravitational field (83C45) Space-time singularities, cosmic censorship, etc. (83C75) Relativistic gravitational theories other than Einstein's, including asymmetric field theories (83D05)

Abstract: We study vertex operators in 4D conformal field theory derived from quantized gravity, whose dynamics is governed by the Wess-Zumino action by Riegert and the Weyl action. Conformal symmetry is equal to diffeomorphism symmetry in the ultraviolet limit, which mixes positive-metric and negative-metric modes of the gravitational field and thus these modes cannot be treated separately in physical operators. In this paper, we construct gravitational vertex operators such as the Ricci scalar, defined as space-time volume integrals of them are invariant under conformal transformations. Short distance singularities of these operator products are computed and it is shown that their coefficients have physically correct sign. Furthermore, we show that conformal algebra holds even in the system perturbed by the cosmological constant vertex operator as in the case of the Liouville theory shown by Curtright and Thorn.

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From the author's Conclusions: In this paper the author studied various vertex operators in 4D CFT obtained by quantizing gravity in the non-perturbative manner, whose dynamics is described by the combined system of the Riegert-Wess-Zumino action and the Weyl action. The conformal invariance is equal to the diffeomorphism invariance in the UV limit, which gives the first example of a diffeomorphism algebra that is closed quantum mechanically in four dimensions. Since the conformal symmetry mixes the positive-metric and the negative-metric modes in the gravitational field, it is not possible to treat these modes separately and thus the field acts as a whole when physical quantities are considered. Developing the study of the transformation law of the gravitational field achieved in a previous work [Int. J. Mod. Phys. A 24, No. 16--17, 3073--3110 (2009; Zbl 1168.81402)], the author constructed the gravitational vertex operator composed of the field such as the Ricci scalar. The short distance singularity of the product of the vertex operator has been computed and it was shown that the coefficient has the physical sign of positive when \(b_1> 0\). This result seems to be natural because the positivity of two-point functions originates from the property that the vertex operator is real due to diffeomorphism invariance, and why the positivity does not break in the correlation, after all, comes from the fact that the action is bounded from below so that the path integral is well-defined. Of course, this statement is based on the fact that physical vertex operators are written in terms of the field itself and thus the ghost mode never appears individually. If ghosts themselves were gauge invariant as in usual perturbative approaches, one could not apply this statement to their correlations because only the ghost part in the action contributes to the path integral so that the positivity of the overall sign of the action becomes meaningless. Finally, it is shown that the generator of conformal transformations perturbed by the cosmological constant vertex operator with mass scale also forms the conformal algebra. This indicates that correlation functions in such a perturbed system have a power-law behavior of this mass scale, as in the case of 2D quantum gravity.

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