Project information
One loop in ten and eleven dimensions

Einstein's theory of gravity, while very successful, is valid only at sufficiently low energies. At high enough energy it will receive quantum corrections. While these are expected to be too small to be directly measurable, they are important for the theoretical understanding of for example black holes. To compute them a theory of quantum gravity is needed.

This project is aimed at finding the complete form of the one-loop correction that arises in type II string theory. There is a related one-loop correction in eleven-dimensional supergravity, whose full form is also unknown, which will also be investigated. The main tool to achieve this aim is superspace methods, which treats the supersymmetry of the theory in geometric terms. The outcome will shed new light on the precise form of interactions in a consistent theory of quantum gravity and have implications for theoretical investigations of black holes and cosmology.