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Cross-sections for the gravitational scattering of massless particles

University of British Columbia

The purpose of this thesis is to examine the gravitational scattering of massless scalar particles, photons, four component neutrinos, and two component neutrinos by one another. A modification of the quantum theory of the weak gravitational field developed by Gupta is used as a basis for the considerations. Cross-sections are given for the gravitational scattering of scalar particles by: scalar particles, photons, four component neutrinos, and two component neutrinos; of photons by: photons, four component neutrinos, and two component neutrinos; of four component neutrinos by four component neutrinos, and of two component neutrinos by two component neutrinos. The cross-section given by Barker et al and by Boccaletti et al for the scattering of photons by photons is confirmed. The cross-section for the scattering of massive scalar particles by massive scalar particles quoted by DeWitt and the cross-section for the scattering of photons by massive scalar particles given by Boccaletti et al are found to be in error and are corrected.

Text

2011-06-07

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http://hdl.handle.net/2429/35243

Physics

University of British Columbia

Graduate