Higher Derivative Corrections to Lower Order RG Flow Equations

Abstract: We show that the RG flow equation for the cosmological constant (CC) receives contributions (in addition to those coming from the CC the Einstein-Hilbert term and $R^{2}$ and $R_{\mu\nu}^{2}$ terms) only from terms with just two powers of curvature, but having also powers of the covariant derivative, in the Wilsonian effective action. In pure gravity our argument implies that just considering $f(R)$ theories will miss this effect which arises from terms such as $"R"\square^{n}"R",\,n=0,1,2,\ldots$. We expect similar contributions for the flow equation of the Einstein-Hilbert term as well. Finally we argue that the perturbative ghosts coming from curvature squared terms in the action are in fact spurious since they are at the cutoff scale and can be removed by (cutoff dependent) field redefinitions.