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Graviton detection and the quantization of gravity

Daniel Carney1,*, Valerie Domcke2,†, and Nicholas L. Rodd2,‡

  • 1Physics Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 1 Cyclotron Road, Berkeley, California 94720, USA
  • 2Theoretical Physics Department, CERN, 1 Esplanade des Particules, CH-1211 Geneva 23, Switzerland

  • *carney@lbl.gov
  • †valerie.domcke@cern.ch
  • ‡nick.rodd@cern.ch
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Phys. Rev. D 109, 044009 – Published 5 February, 2024

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.109.044009

Abstract

We revisit a question asked by Dyson: “Is a graviton detectable?” We demonstrate that in both Dyson’s original sense and in a more modern measurement-theoretic sense, it is possible to construct a detector sensitive to single gravitons, and in fact a variety of existing and near-term gravitational wave detectors can achieve this. However, while such a signal would be consistent with the quantization of the gravitational field, we draw on results from quantum optics to show how the same signal could just as well be explained via classical gravitational waves. We outline the kind of measurements that would be needed to demonstrate quantization of gravitational radiation and explain why these are substantially more difficult than simply counting graviton clicks or observing gravitational noise in an interferometer, and likely impossible to perform in practice.

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Phys. Rev. D 109, 044009– Published 5 February, 2024
  • Received 8 September 2023
  • Accepted 17 January 2024
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