Factorization and polarization in linearized gravity.

Abstract

We investigate all the four-body graviton interaction processes: $gX\rightarrow \gamma X$, $gX\rightarrow gX$, and $gg\rightarrow gg$ with $X$ as an elementary particle of spin less than two in the context of linearized gravity except the spin-3/2 case. We show explicitly that gravitational gauge invariance and Lorentz invariance cause every four-body graviton scattering amplitude to be factorized. We explore the implications of this factorization property by investigating polarization effects through the covariant density matrix formalism in each four-body graviton scattering process.