Conformal and non Conformal Dilaton Gravity

Abstract

The quantum dynamics of the gravitational field non-minimally coupled to an (also dynamical) scalar field is studied in the {\em broken phase}. For a particular value of the coupling the system is classically conformal, and can actually be understood as the group averaging of Einstein-Hilbert's action under conformal transformations. Conformal invariance implies a simple Ward identity asserting that the trace of the equation of motion for the graviton is the equation of motion of the scalar field. We perform an explicit one-loop computation to show that the DeWitt effective action is not UV divergent {\em on shell} and to find that the Weyl symmetry Ward identity is preserved {\em on shell} at that level. We also discuss the fate of this Ward identity at the two-loop level --under the assumption that the two-loop UV divergent part of the effective action can be retrieved from the Goroff-Sagnotti counterterm-- and show that its preservation in the renormalized theory requires the introduction of counterterms which exhibit a logarithmic dependence on the dilaton field.