On the Vacuum Propagation of Gravitational Waves

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that in covariant quantum field theories coupled to gravity, plane gravitational waves in Minkowski vacuum do not lose energy or momentum through quantum effects, highlighting their stability.

Contribution

It establishes that gravitational waves in Minkowski vacuum remain non-dissipative within a broad class of covariant quantum field theories.

Findings

Gravitational waves do not dissipate energy via quantum effects.

Quantum field theoretic effects do not cause energy loss in gravitational waves.

Results apply to any local, causal quantum field theory with Minkowski vacuum.

Abstract

We show that, for any local, causal quantum field theory which couples covariantly to gravity, and which admits Minkowski spacetime vacuum(a) invariant under the inhomogeneous proper orthochronous Lorentz group, plane gravitational waves propagating in such Minkowski vacuum(a) do not dissipate energy or momentum via quantum field theoretic effects.