Gauge Independent Logarithms from Inflationary Gravitons

Abstract

Dependence on the graviton gauge enters the conventional effective field equations because they fail to account for quantum gravitational correlations with the source which excites the effective field and with the observer who measures it. Including these correlations has been shown to eliminate gauge dependence in flat space background. We generalize the technique to de Sitter background for the case of the 1-loop graviton corrections to the exchange potential of a massless, minimally coupled scalar.