Quantum Gravitational Contributions to Gauge Field Theories

We revisit quantum gravitational contributions to quantum gauge field theories in the gauge condition independent Vilkovisky-DeWitt formalism based on the background field method.With the advantage of Landau-DeWitt gauge,we explicitly obtain the gauge condition independent result for the quadratically divergent gravitational corrections to gauge couplings.By employing,in a general way,a scheme-independent regularization method that can preserve both gauge invariance and original divergent behavior of integrals,we show that the resulting gauge coupling is power-law running and asymptotically free.The regularization scheme dependence is clarified by comparing with results obtained by other methods.The loop regularization scheme is found to be applicable for a consistent calculation.