Renormalization group flows in area-metric gravity

Abstract: We put forward the first analysis of renormalization group flows in an area-metric theory, motivated by spin-foam quantum gravity. Area-metric gravity contains the well-known length-metric degrees of freedom of standard gravity as well as additional shape-mismatching degrees of freedom. To be phenomenologically viable, the shape-mismatching degrees of freedom have to decouple under the renormalization group flow towards lower scales. We test this scenario by calculating the renormalization group flow of the masses and find that these are in general even more relevant than dictated by their canonical scaling dimension. This generically results in masses which are large compared to the Planck mass and thereby ensure the decoupling of shape-mismatching degrees of freedom. In addition, the latter come in a left-handed and right-handed sector. We find that parity symmetry does not emerge under the renormalization group flow. Finally, we extract the renormalization group flow of the Immirzi parameter from this setup and find that its beta function features zeros at vanishing as well as at infinite Immirzi parameter.