Quantum gravity and scalar fields

In this Letter we consider the quantization of a scalar field coupled to gravity at one loop order. We investigate the divergences appearing in the mass (i.e. ϕ2) term in the effective action. We use the Vilkovisky-DeWitt effective action technique which guarantees that the result is gauge invariant as well as gauge condition independent in contrast to traditional calculations. Our final result is to identify the complete pole part of the effective action.