Heat Kernel and Quantum Gravity ISBN: 9783540465232 Platform/Publisher: SpringerLink / Springer Berlin Heidelberg Digital rights:Users: unlimited; Printing: unlimited; Download: unlimited Subjects: Physics and Astronomy;
This book tackles quantum gravity via the so-called background field method and its effective action functional. The author presents an explicitly covariant and effective technique to calculate the de Witt coefficients and to analyze the Schwinger-de Wit asymptotic expansion of the effective action. He also investigates the ultraviolet behaviour of higher-derivative quantum gravity. The book addresses theoretical physicists, graduate students as well as researchers, but should also be of interest to physicists working in mathematical or elementary particle physics.