Quantum Gravity and Precision Tests

Abstract

This article provides a cartoon of the quantization of General Relativity using the ideas of effective field theory. These ideas underpin the use of General Relativity as a theory from which precise predictions are possible, since they show why quantum corrections to standard classical calculations are small. Quantum corrections can be computed controllably provided they are made for the weakly-curved geometries associated with precision tests of General Relativity, such as within the solar system or for binary pulsars. They also bring gravity back into the mainstream of physics, by showing that its quantization (at low energies) exactly parallels the quantization of other, better understood, non-renormalizable field theories which arise elsewhere in physics. Of course effective field theory techniques do not solve the fundamental problems of quantum gravity discussed elsewhere in these pages, but they do helpfully show that these problems are specific to applications on very small distance scales. They also show why we may safely reject any proposals to modify gravity at long distances if these involve low-energy problems (like ghosts or instabilities), since such problems are unlikely to be removed by the details of the ultimate understanding of gravity at microscopic scales.