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Does gravity correct gauge couplings?

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A Brief Communications Arising to this article was published on 23 November 2011

Abstract

Arising from D. J. Toms Nature 468, 56–59 (2010)10.1038/nature09506; Toms reply

Whether various models of quantum gravity predict observable effects is a matter of dispute. Toms has argued1 that there are quantum gravity corrections to the energy dependence of the electric charge in quantum electrodynamics (QED) that depend quadratically on the energy, and cause the electric charge to vanish at high energies. This conclusion was based on a background field calculation using a cut-off thought to be related to energy. We argue that scattering processes cannot have such a quadratic energy dependence. Hence the quadratic correction1 cannot apply to a charge that is physically measurable, and does not lead to asymptotic freedom in QED.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. * Theory Division, CERN, CH-1211 Geneva 23, Switzerland john.ellis@cern.ch,

    John Ellis

  2. Department of Physics, King’s College London, Strand, WC2R 2LS, London, UK

    Nick E. Mavromatos

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  1. John Ellis
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  2. Nick E. Mavromatos
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The two authors contributed equally to this paper.

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Correspondence to John Ellis.

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Ellis, J., Mavromatos, N. Does gravity correct gauge couplings?. Nature 479, E5–E6 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature10619

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