Bending of Light in Quantum Gravity

TY - JOUR

T1 - Bending of Light in Quantum Gravity

AU - Bjerrum-Bohr, N. Emil J.

AU - Donoghue, John F.

AU - Holstein, Barry R

AU - Planté, Ludovic

AU - Vanhove, Pierre

PY - 2015/2/12

Y1 - 2015/2/12

N2 - We consider the scattering of lightlike matter in the presence of a heavy scalar object (such as the Sun or a Schwarzschild black hole). By treating general relativity as an effective field theory we directly compute the nonanalytic components of the one-loop gravitational amplitude for the scattering of massless scalars or photons from an external massive scalar field. These results allow a semiclassical computation of the bending angle for light rays grazing the Sun, including long-range contributions. We discuss implications of this computation, in particular, the violation of some classical formulations of the equivalence principle.

AB - We consider the scattering of lightlike matter in the presence of a heavy scalar object (such as the Sun or a Schwarzschild black hole). By treating general relativity as an effective field theory we directly compute the nonanalytic components of the one-loop gravitational amplitude for the scattering of massless scalars or photons from an external massive scalar field. These results allow a semiclassical computation of the bending angle for light rays grazing the Sun, including long-range contributions. We discuss implications of this computation, in particular, the violation of some classical formulations of the equivalence principle.

U2 - 10.1103/physrevlett.114.061301

DO - 10.1103/physrevlett.114.061301

M3 - Journal article

SN - 0031-9007

VL - 114

JO - Physical Review Letters

JF - Physical Review Letters

M1 - 061301

ER -