The perturbative Ricci flow in gravity

Abstract

We develop a perturbative formulation of the Ricci flow in gravity. Following steps analogous to the gradient flow in QCD, we supplement the usual Feynman rules for perturbative gravity by flowed propagators and vertices as well as graviton flow lines which describe the evolution of gravity along the Ricci flow. By calculating vacuum expectation values of a number of independent operators at the two-loop level, we derive the required counterterms of the flowed action. Our results allow us to define a Ricci-flow based renormalization scheme for Newton's constant $G_N$. Studying its renormalization group behavior, we recover a non-Gau{\ss}ian fixed point in accordance with well-known non-perturbative considerations