Quantum gravity corrections to the matter dynamics in the presence of a reference fluid

Abstract

We analyze the effect induced on standard quantum field theory (in a functional approach) by quantum gravity corrections to a pure classical background. In the framework of the Kucha\ifmmode \check{r}\else \v{r}\fi{} and Torre proposal for a gravity-matter theory constrained to a Gaussian reference frame, materialized as a fluid in the system evolution, we consider a Born-Oppenheimer separation of the system, regarding the gravity degrees of freedom as the slow varying component and the matter plus the Gaussian fluid as fast quantum coordinates. The slow gravity component obeys the Wheeler-DeWitt equation, and we consider a Wentzel-Kramer-Brillouin expansion of its quantum dynamics via a Planckian parameter. The main issue of the proposed scenario is that, on one hand, we recover a modified quantum field theory in the presence of a Hermitian Hamiltonian (not affected by nonunitarity as in other approaches) and, on the other hand, we get the Gaussian fluid as a physical clock for such an amended quantum theory (verifying the correct energy conditions). We also show its equivalence with the kinematical action method, used in a previous work, in the homogeneous setting. Then, we implement the proposed paradigm to describe the dynamics of a homogeneous free massless scalar field, living on an isotropic universe, in the presence of a cosmological constant. We completely solve the dynamics up to the first order correction in the Planckian parameter to the standard quantum field theory. We determine the explicit form of the modified scalar field wave function, due to quantum features of the cosmic scale factor evolution. Phenomenological considerations and discussions are provided.