12–15 May 2026
James Clerk Maxwell Building
Europe/London timezone

The perturbative Ricci flow

12 May 2026, 16:00
30m
Lecture theatre B, 3rd Floor (James Clerk Maxwell Building)

Lecture theatre B, 3rd Floor

James Clerk Maxwell Building

Mayfield Road Edinburgh EH9 3JZ UK
Submitted Talk

Speaker

Henry Werthenbach (TTK, RWTH Aachen University, 52056 Aachen, Germany)

Description

One candidate for a quantum theory of gravity is the Asymptotic Safety conjecture, which postulates the existence of a non-trivial fixed point for the gravitational couplings. We investigate the search for such a fixed point within the framework of perturbation theory.

For this, we employ the Ricci flow as the central tool, pursuing a perturbative scheme analogous to the gradient flow formalism in QCD. In QCD, the gradient flow was introduced to bridge the gap between lattice simulations and perturbative calculations, allowing for a definition of a renormalisation scheme that is accessible in both settings. Applied to gravity the gradient flow is known as Ricci flow. The core idea is to utilize this framework to compute the beta function of the gravitational coupling by explicitly defining it within the Ricci flow scheme.

In this talk, I will present the first steps towards constructing a perturbative implementation of the Ricci flow and the definition of Newton's coupling in this scheme.

Authors

Henry Werthenbach (TTK, RWTH Aachen University, 52056 Aachen, Germany) Jonas Kohnen (TTK, RWTH Aachen University, 52056 Aachen, Germany) Prof. Robert Harlander (TTK, RWTH Aachen University, 52056 Aachen, Germany) Dr Yannick Kluth (Department of Physics, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5S 1A7, Canada)

Presentation materials

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