English

Massless graviton in de Sitter as second sound in two-fluid hydrodynamics

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology 2026-05-12 v5 Other Condensed Matter

Abstract

The concept of gravitons and their masses, clear in the case of Minkowski spacetime, remains ambiguous for de Sitter spacetime. Here, we used a two-fluid approach to de Sitter thermodynamics and found a collective mode that is analogous to second sound in the two-fluid dynamics of the de Sitter state. This mode is massless and propagates at the speed of light. This suggests that this second-sound analog is a massless graviton propagating in de Sitter spacetime. The type of graviton this mode represents requires further consideration.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2601.00639,
  title  = {Massless graviton in de Sitter as second sound in two-fluid hydrodynamics},
  author = {G. E. Volovik},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2601.00639},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

7 pages, no figures, comments are welcome