Response of interferometers to the vacuum of quantum gravity

Abstract

It has recently been suggested that exotic quantum gravity effects could lead to large vacuum fluctuations, potentially observable with realistic detectors. Experiments are currently being built to search for these signals. Here we analyze the minimal model of quantum gravity at low energies -- the usual effective quantum field theory of gravitons -- and show that it unambiguously predicts an unobservably small variation in the measured interferometer length $\Delta L \sim \ell_{\rm pl} \sim 10^{-35}~{\rm m}$. In particular, there are no divergences signaling a breakdown of this calculation in the low energy regime. Thus, detection of a large, gravitationally-induced length variation would signal a severe breakdown of effective quantum field theory in low energy quantum gravity.