Representing the Graviton Self-Energy on de Sitter Background

Abstract

We derive a noncovariant but simple representation for the self-energy of a conformally transformed graviton field on the cosmological patch of de Sitter. Our representation involves four structure functions, as opposed to the two that would be necessary for a manifestly de Sitter invariant representation. We work out what the four structure functions are for the one loop correction due to a massless, minimally coupled scalar. And we employ the result to work out what happens to dynamical gravitons.