SEARCH FOR THE ‘graviton’

Presented by:
Sam William Carey
 Why care ?

I’m in the business

thanks to CERN fellas!
Where are you
‘graviton’
Still missing!!!

G
Coined by Dmitrii Ianovich Blokhintsev

A formidable proponent of String theory ‘Theory of everything’

Any guesses?
 YES IT IS
Detection of gravitational waves
by LIGO
Didn’t I tell ya ~

Einstein expounded the existence of

gravitational waves through his very
famous general theory of relativity.
Which he had predicted to travel at the
speed of light.
(confirmed by the observation of gamma
ray burst along with the G-wave)
 So what does it mean for graviton
Just as Electromagnetic field which constructed as a consequence of
Electromagnetic waves, works on the principle of force carriers called
photons(interacting between particles).

So do gravitational field which exist based on the existence of gravitational waves,

predict on similar lines (as EM field theory) the existence of force carriers called
gravitons
Exciting time! for quantum gravitational physicist
Isn’t it??
 Well… NOT Really
• Extreme improbableness
associated with the measurement
of gravitational effects at
Then what? microscopic level.
• Gravitational effects become
prominent at Planck scale(Planck
mass particles and separated by
Planck Length).
 But then let us play the theorist game
Some defined/predicted properties:
o The fact that gravity is found to have a long range effect automatically means that the
interaction energy depends on separation 1/r. There is no other possibility. The field is carried by
1
the exchange of graviton. It must have a mass m=0 so that the force proportional to 2 results
𝑟
from interaction.
o Spin of graviton is 2.
o The action that describes the total system of gravity, fields, matter, and coupling between matter
and gravitons, has the following form:

From this lagrangian of fields we can deduce some important properties, for example we can
understand why gravitation is attractive for likes and unlikes (unlike electrostatic force wherein
likes repel),
 The final frontier ):
Having laid out a strong foundation with the discovery of gravitational waves and predictions by
theorists on the properties of graviton the roadmap ahead now looks like “who discovers gravitons
first”.
Based on works of some theorists we can put forth a series of ways to discover the elusive graviton.
But before putting forth ways of detecting, it is important to specify the sources.

Graviton generators: can be classified as thermal and non thermal.

• For the sake of thermal generator the most efficient source is the ‘sun’. Stephen Weinberg long
ago calculated the the graviton luminosity of sun to be about 1024 gravitons per second with
energy in the kV range.
• It is possible to imagine various ways in which energetic objects such as pulsars may emit non
thermal gravitons(Gertsenshtein process).
 Graviton Detectors:
Gravito-Compton and the LIGO:
• A classical G-wave may be considered to be a coherent superposition of a large number of gravitons.
LIGO is supposed to detect a wave with a strain amplitude ‘f’ of the order 10−21 . According to Landau,
the energy density of this wave is
E=(𝒄𝟐 /𝟑𝟐𝝅𝑮)𝝎𝟐 𝒇𝟐 , G is gravitational constant, ω being angular frequency
• For an angular frequency of 1kHz, the single graviton energy density is at most 3 ∗ 10−37 ergs per 𝑐𝑚3 .
So any gravitational wave detectable by LIGO must contain 3 ∗ 1037 gravitons. For a LIGO apparatus to
detect a single graviton, its sensitivity would have to be improved by a factor of the order 3 ∗ 1037 .
• We have a better chance of detecting a single graviton if we raise the frequency into optical range and
use a different kind of detector.
• When the frequency is of the order of 1015 hertz or higher, a single graviton can kick a electron out of
an atom, and the electron can be detected by standard methods of atomic or particle physics
(gravito-electric effect).
 Gertsenshtein method:

• In the case of pulsars emitting non thermal gravitons of high energy, gertsenshtein described a process of
photo-graviton coherent mixing like the neutrino mixing.
• If a photon travels a distance D through a uniform magnetic field B, it will emerge as a graviton with
1
𝐺 2 𝐵𝐷 𝐷
probability, P=sin2 2 = sin2 ( )
2𝑐 𝐿
with the mixing length 𝐿 = (2𝑐 /𝐺 1/2 𝐵).
2

• We may also consider the gertsenshtein process as the basis of graviton detector consisting of a hollow
pipe of length filled with a transverse magnetic fieldB. The tube must be accurately pointed at a putative
source of gravitons in the sky. At the far end of the tube is a shield to block photons incident, and at the
near end is a shield to block photons resulting from the conversion of gravitons on their way through the
tube.
 Concluding remarks:

One hypothesis is that gravity is a quantum field and

gravitons exist.
A second hypothesis is that the gravitational field is a
statistical concept like entropy or temperature, only
defined for gravitational effects of matter in bulk and
not for effects of individual elementary particles. If the
second hypothesis is true, then the gravitational field is
not a local field like EM field. The second hypothesis
implies that the gravitational field at a point in space-
time does not exist, either as a classical or as a quantum
field.
Dr. Freeman Dyson
an excerpt from his poincare prize lecture
References:
1) ‘Can gravitons be detected’ : Tony Rotham & Stephen Boughn.
2) ‘Is graviton detectable’ : Freeman Dyson (Poincare prize lecture).
3) ‘Observation of Gravitational waves from a binary black hole merger’ : B.P.Abbott.
4) ‘Elementary theory of graviton production process’ : Robert J. Gould.
5) ‘Feynman lectures on gravitation’ : Richard P. Feynman, Fernando B. Morinigo & William
G. Wagner.
6) ‘Wikipedia.org’