Inflationary cosmology from quantum Conformal Gravity
  We analyze the functional integral for quantum Conformal Gravity and show that with the help of a Hubbard-Stratonovich transformation, the action can be broken into a local quadratic-curvature theory coupled to a scalar field. A one-loop effective action calculation reveals that strong fluctuations of the metric field are capable of spontaneously generating a dimensionally transmuted parameter which in the weak-field sector of the broken phase induces a Starobinsky-type f(R)-model with a gravi-cosmological constant. A resulting non-trivial relation between Starobinsky'sparameter and the cosmological constant is highlighted and implications for cosmic inflation are briefly discussed and compared with recent PLANCK and BICEP2 data. 
Petr Jizba, Hagen Kleinert, Fabio Scardigli
hep-th gr-qc