Purely virtual particles in quantum field theory and quantum gravity

by Marco Piva (Tallin)

Thursday 17 Feb 2022, 14:00 → 15:00 Europe/Berlin

https://tum-conf.zoom.us/j/843685110?pwd=TEFqOEdOZ1FJWjBYa0lURFpmT09mZz09 (HS2 (5101.EG.502) and online)

Purely virtual particles, or fakeons, are degrees of freedom of a new type that mediate interactions but cannot appear as external on-shell states. The main application of fakeons is quantum gravity, which can be made both renormalizable and unitary. After discussing in detail how to endow quantum field theory with fakeons, I will present the main features of the theory of quantum gravity and show its predictions in inflationary cosmology. Finally, I will conclude with some remarks on fakeons in the context of particle physics.