Was Dyson Correct That Detecting A Single Graviton Theoretically Impossible?

[ohwilleke]

TL;DR

Freeman Dyson concluded in a highly cited 2013 talk that a single graviton cannot be detected, even in theory. Why did he reach this conclusion, and is it widely accepted?

Dyson concluded that the detection of single gravitons is not physically possible, according to this pre-print, citing Freeman Dyson, "Is A Graviton Detectable?", Int. J. Mod. Phys. A 28, 1330041 (2013) (which has at least 94 citations).

This was a conclusion that he made in an "Invited talk given at the Conference in Honour of the 90th Birthday of Freeman Dyson, Institute of Advanced Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, 26–29 August 2013." This was basically his own keynote speech at a Festschrift convened in honor of his 90th birthday (he died six and a half year later, on February 28, 2020).

The brief excerpt from his talk available in lieu of an abstract states (after some introductory thank you's and formalities) that:

Obviously, this omits all the good stuff.

1. What was the gist of the reasoning behind his conclusion?

I ask, because the published version of the talk is not an open access paper, it does not appear to have a counterpart on arXiv, and I don't have access to the journal through, e.g., a university library subscription.

2. Is his conclusion on this point widely accepted?

I ask because some of Dyson's most notable ideas (across an exceptionally broad range of fields) are controversial or speculative, although others have near universal acceptance.

Also, many famous scientists tend to make some of their most controversial statements in the final years of their careers, and this statement was definitely one of his last notable pronouncements about physics.

So, it cannot be taken for granted that this conclusion was widely accepted even though he was an eminent physicist. On the other hand, because he was such an eminent physicist, no conclusion he reached about physics can be dismissed out of hand.

 

[renormalize]

I ask, because the published version of the talk is not an open access paper, it does not appear to have a counterpart on arXiv, and I don't have access to the journal through, e.g., a university library subscription.

Dyson apparently gave essentially the same talk in Denmark in 2012. See here for the full text: https://publications.ias.edu/sites/default/files/poincare2012.pdf.

 

[fresh_42]

There are still plenty of articles about it on arxiv.org:
https://arxiv.org/search/?query=Gra...acts=show&order=-announced_date_first&size=50

Some dispute Dyson's conclusions...

We demonstrate that in both Dyson's original sense and in a more modern measurement-theoretic sense, it is possible to construct a detector sensitive to single gravitons, and in fact a variety of existing and near-term gravitational wave detectors can achieve this.

... while others agree - sort of.

We attempt to answer Dyson's question and find it is possible concoct an idealized thought experiment capable of detecting one graviton; however, when anything remotely resembling realistic physics is taken into account, detection becomes impossible, indicating that Dyson's conjecture is very likely true.

 

[ohwilleke]

Dyson apparently gave essentially the same talk in Denmark in 2012. See here for the full text: https://publications.ias.edu/sites/default/files/poincare2012.pdf.

Many thanks!

 

[Demystifier]

Dyson apparently gave essentially the same talk in Denmark in 2012. See here for the full text: https://publications.ias.edu/sites/default/files/poincare2012.pdf.

After Eq. (23) Dyson concludes: "If the experiment continues for the life-time of the sun, which is 5 billion years, the expected total number of gravitons detected will be 4. The experiment barely succeeds, but in principle it can detect gravitons."

 

[PeterDonis]

@javisot20 your posts are still not making sense and you are hijacking someone else's thread. You have now been banned from further posting in this thread.