Multifractional spacetimes, asymptotic safety and Ho\v{r}ava-Lifshitz gravity

Abstract

We compare the recently formulated multifractional spacetimes with field theories of quantum gravity based on the renormalization group (RG), such as asymptotic safety and Ho\v{r}ava--Lifshitz gravity. The change of spacetime dimensionality with the probed scale is realized in both cases by an adaptation of the measurement tools ("rods") to the scale, but in different ways. In the multifractional case, by an adaptation of the position-space measure, which can be encoded into an explicit scale dependence of effective coordinates. In the case of RG-based theories, by an adaptation of the momenta. The two pictures are mapped into each other, thus presenting the fractal structure of spacetime in RG-based theories under an alternative perspective.