Flow equation of quantum Einstein gravity in a higher-derivative truncation

Motivated by recent evidence indicating that quantum Einstein gravity (QEG) might be nonperturbatively renormalizable, the exact renormalization group equation of QEG is evaluated in a truncation of theory space which generalizes the Einstein-Hilbert truncation by the inclusion of a higher-derivative term (R^2). The beta functions describing the renormalization group flow of the cosmological constant, Newton's constant, and the R^2 coupling are computed explicitly. The fixed point properties of the 3-dimensional flow are investigated, and they are confronted with those of the 2-dimensional Einstein-Hilbert flow. The non-Gaussian fixed point predicted by the latter is found to generalize to a fixed point on the enlarged theory space. In order to test the reliability of the R^2 truncation near this fixed point we analyze the residual scheme dependence of various universal quantities; it turns out to be very weak. The two truncations are compared in detail, and their numerical predictions are found to agree with a surprisingly high precision. Because of the consistency of the results it appears increasingly unlikely that the non-Gaussian fixed point is an artifact of the truncation. If it is present in the exact theory QEG is probably nonperturbatively renormalizable and ``asymptotically safe. '' We discuss how the conformal factor problem of Euclidean gravity manifests itself in the exact renormalization group approach and show that, in the R^2 truncation, the investigation of the fixed point is not afflicted with this problem. Also the Gaussian fixed point of the Einstein-Hilbert truncation is analyzed; it turns out that it does not generalize to a corresponding fixed point on the enlarged theory space.