English

On the issue of gravitons

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology 2009-11-11 v2

Abstract

We investigate the problem of whether one can anticipate any features of the graviton without a detailed knowledge of a full quantum gravity. Assuming that in linearized gravity the graviton is in a sense similar to the photon, we derive a curious large number coincidence between the number of gravitons emitted by a solar planet during its orbital period and the number of its nucleons. In Einstein's GR the analogy between the graviton and the photon is ill founded. A generic relationship between quanta of a quantum field and plane waves of the corresponding classical field is broken in the case of GR. The graviton cannot be classically approximated by a generic pp wave nor by the exact plane wave. Most important, the ADM energy is a zero frequency characteristic of any asymptotically flat spacetime and this means that any general relationship between energy and frequency is a priori impossible. In particular the formula E=ωE=\hbar \omega does not hold. The graviton must have features different from those of the photon and these cannot be predicted from classical general relativity.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.gr-qc/0606111,
  title  = {On the issue of gravitons},
  author = {Leszek M. Sokolowski and Andrzej Staruszkiewicz},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:gr-qc/0606111},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

14 pages. One phrase added