New counterterms induced by trans-Planckian physics in semiclassical gravity

Abstract

We consider free and self-interacting quantum scalar fields satisfying modified dispersion relations in the framework of Einstein-Aether theory. Using adiabatic regularization, we study the renormalization of the equation for the mean value of the field in the self-interacting case, and the renormalization of the semiclassical Einstein-Aether equations for free fields. In both cases we consider Bianchi type I background spacetimes. Contrary to what happens for free fields in flat Robertson-Walker spacetimes, the self-interaction and/or the anisotropy produce nonpurely geometric terms in the adiabatic expansion, i.e. terms that involve both the metric g{sub {mu}}{sub {nu}} and the aether field u{sub {mu}}. We argue that, in a general spacetime, the renormalization of the theory would involve new counterterms constructed with g{sub {mu}}{sub {nu}} and u{sub {mu}}, generating a fine-tuning problem for the Einstein-Aether theory.