On Restricting to One Loop Order the Radiative Effects in Quantum Gravity

The dimensionful nature of the coupling in the Einstein-Hilbert action in four dimensions implies that the theory is non-renormalizable; explicit calculation shows that beginning at two loop order, divergences arise that cannot be removed by renormalization without introducing new terms in the classical action. It has been shown that, by use of a Lagrange multiplier field to ensure that the classical equation of motion is satisfied in the path integral, radiative effects can be restricted to one loop order. We show that by use of such Lagrange multiplier fields, the Einstein-Hilbert action can be quantized without the occurrence of non-renormalizable divergences. We then employ this mechanism to a model in which there is in addition to the Einstein-Hilbert action, a fully covariant action for a self-interacting scalar field coupled to the metric. It proves possible to restrict loop diagrams involving internal lines involving the metric to one-loop order; diagrams in which the scalar field propagates occur at arbitrary high order in the loop expansion. This model also can be shown to be renormalizable. Incorporating spinor and vector fields in the same way as scalar fields is feasible, and so the Standard Model with a dynamical metric can also be shown to be renormalizable.The accepted manuscript in pdf format is listed with the files at the bottom of this page. The presentation of the authors' names and (or) special characters in the title of the manuscript may differ slightly between what is listed on this page and what is listed in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript; that in the pdf file of the accepted manuscript is what was submitted by the author