How Inflationary Gravitons Affect the Force of Gravity

Abstract

We employ an unregulated computation of the graviton self-energy from gravitons on the de Sitter background to infer the renormalized result. This is used to quantum-correct the linearized Einstein equation. We solve this equation for the potentials that represent the gravitational response to a static, point mass. We find large spatial and temporal logarithmic corrections to the Newtonian potential and to the gravitational shift. Although suppressed by a minuscule loop-counting parameter, these corrections cause perturbation theory to break down at large distances and late times. Another interesting fact is that gravitons induce up to three large logarithms, whereas a loop of massless, minimally coupled scalars produces only a single large logarithm. This is in line with corrections to the graviton mode function: a loop of gravitons induces two large logarithms, whereas a scalar loop gives none.