Semiclassical and Effective Theories of Gravitation

Abstract

First and second order corrections for the scattering of different types of particles by a weak gravitational field, treated as an external field, are calculated. These computations indicate a violation of the Equivalence Principle: to first order, the cross-sections are spin dependent; if the calculations are pushed to the next order, they become dependent upon energy as well. Interesting enough, the aforementioned results are equivalent to those obtained by means of the so-called Effective Theory of Gravitation, in the limit in which one of the masses is much greater than all the other energies involved. We discuss also some applications of our research, such as the determination of an upper bound for the photon mass, and the possible detection, in the foreseeable future, of these violations of the Equivalence Principle.