DILATONIC GRAVITY NEAR 2 DIMENSIONS AS A STRING THEORY

Using the renormalization group formalism, a sigma model of a special type - in which the metric and the dilaton depend explicitly on one of the string coordinates only - is investigated near two dimensions. It is seen that dilatonic gravity coupled to N scalar fields can be expr essed in this form, using a string parametrization, and that it posses ses the usual uv fixed point. However, in this stringy parametrization of the theory the fixed point for the scalar-dilaton coupling turns o ut to be trivial, while that for the gravitational coupling remains th e same as in previous studies being, in particular, nontrivial.