General Estimate for the Graviton Lifetime

Abstract

By means of general kinematical arguments, the lifetime $\ddot{I}„$ of a graviton of energy $E$ for decay into gravitons is found to have the form $\ddot{I}{„}^{-1}=\frac{1}{EG}{\sum }_{j=1,2,...}{c}_j(\hat{I}›G{)}^j$. Some recent, preliminary results of non perturbative simplicial quantum gravity are then employed to estimate the effective values of $G$ and $\hat{I}›G$. It turns out that a short lifetime of the graviton cannot be excluded.

LaTex, 7 pages, 1 figure available from the author