Higher derivative quantum gravity with Gauss-Bonnet term

Higher derivative theory is one. of the important models of quantum gravity, renormalizable and asymptotically free within the standard perturbative approach. We consider the 4 - epsilon renormalization group for this theory, an approach which proved fruitful in 2 - epsilon models. A consistent formulation in dimension n = 4 - epsilon requires taking quantum effects of the topological term into account, hence we perform a calculation which is more general than the ones done before. In the special n = 4 case we confirm a known result by Fradkin, Tseytlin, Avramidi, and Barvinsky, while contributions from a topological term do cancel. In the more general case of 4 - epsilon renormalization group equations there is an extensive ambiguity related to gauge-fixing dependence. As a result, physical interpretation of these equations is not universal unless we treat epsilon as a small parameter. In the sector of essential couplings one can find a number of new fixed points, but some of them have no analogs in the n = 4 case.