Aspects of Graviton Detection: Graviton Emission and Absorption by Atomic Hydrogen

TL;DR

This paper calculates graviton emission and absorption rates for hydrogen using semi-classical and field theoretic methods, addressing errors in previous literature related to gauge invariance and spontaneous graviton emission.

Contribution

It provides new calculations of graviton interaction rates with hydrogen and clarifies misconceptions caused by earlier inaccuracies in the literature.

Findings

Calculated graviton absorption cross sections and emission rates for hydrogen.

Identified and corrected errors in previous studies regarding spontaneous graviton emission.

Highlighted the importance of gauge invariance in graviton interaction calculations.

Abstract

Graviton absorption cross sections and emission rates for hydrogen are calculated by both semi-classical and field theoretic methods. We point out several mistakes in the literature concerning spontaneous emission of gravitons and related phenomena, some of which are due to a subtle issue concerning gauge invariance of the linearized interaction Hamiltonian.