Gravitons in a box

Sougato Bose, Anupam Mazumdar, and Marko Toroš
Phys. Rev. D 104, 066019 – Published 16 September 2021

Abstract

Gravity and matter are universally coupled, and this unique universality provides us with an intriguing way to quantify quantum aspects of space-time in terms of the number of gravitons within a given box. In particular, we provide a limit on the number of gravitons if we trace out the matter degrees of freedom. We obtain the universal bound on the number of gravitons, which would be given by Ng(m/Mp)2. Since the number of gravitons also signifies the number of bosonic states they occupy, the number of gravitons indirectly constrain the system’s gravitational entropy. We show that it saturates the Bekenstein bound on the gravitational area law of entropy. Based on these observations, we ascertain that the gravitons permeating in the observable Universe are always Ng1.

  • Received 26 May 2021
  • Accepted 30 July 2021

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.104.066019

© 2021 American Physical Society

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

  1. Research Areas
Gravitation, Cosmology & Astrophysics

Authors & Affiliations

Sougato Bose1, Anupam Mazumdar2, and Marko Toroš3

  • 1Department of Physics and Astronomy, University College London, Gower Street, WC1E 6BT London, United Kingdom
  • 2Van Swinderen Institute, University of Groningen, Groningen 9747 AG, The Netherlands
  • 3School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Glasgow, Glasgow G12 8QQ, United Kingdom

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Issue

Vol. 104, Iss. 6 — 15 September 2021

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