Renormalization of the Einstein-Hilbert action

Abstract: We examine how the Einstein-Hilbert action is renormalized by adding the usual counterterms and additional corner counterterms when the boundary surface has corners. A bulk geometry asymptotic to $H^{d+1}$ can have boundaries $S^k \times H^{d-k}$ and corners for $0\leq k<d$. We show that the conformal anomaly when $d$ is even is independent of $k$. When $d$ is odd the renormalized action is a finite term that we show is independent of $k$ when $k$ is also odd. When $k$ is even we were unable to extract the finite term using the counterterm method and we address this problem using instead the Kounterterm method. We also compute the mass of a two-charged black hole in AdS$_7$ and show that background subtraction agrees with counterterm renormalization only if we use the infinite series expansion for the counterterm.