Regarding graviton and negative energy

[Herbascious J]

Hi. I recently listened to a lecture by Alan Guth, speaking about cosmological inflation. He made the statement that the energy of a gravitational field is negative (followed by a great thought experiment with a collapsing shell of matter to demonstrate this). I am curious; does this mean that the graviton itself would be a particle made of negative energy?? Perhaps I'm over simplifying.

 

[haael]

does this mean that the graviton itself would be a particle made of negative energy??

No, the potential energy of two particles held by some interaction has nothing to do with the energy of the quanta of the interaction field.

 

[sophiecentaur]

This is all a bit speculative as we do not yet know whether there is a particle in existence with the actual properties of a graviton. I guess you could say that a graviton, if it existed, would be 'associated with' negative energy - or at least 'subtractive energy'.
And what about the photon? The exchange of virtual photons is a possible way of looking at the attractive force between opposite charges. Does imply that a virtual photon is "made of negative energy"?