The vacuum Einstein equations admit a formulation closely analogous to the source-free Maxwell theory. In particular, the linearized equations exhibit an electric-magnetic duality symmetry. We develop a framework that makes this analogy manifest by explicitly identifying the electric and magnetic components of perturbative gravitational waves. Within this formulation, we show that duality rotations between these gravitoelectric and gravitomagnetic fields constitute a Noether symmetry of the linearized theory, and we derive the associated conserved current. The corresponding conserved charge encodes the difference in intensity between the right- and left-handed circularly polarized components of the gravitational wave—that is, between its self-dual and antiself-dual parts. Remarkably, this conservation law remains valid even when the gravitational perturbations propagate on generic curved backgrounds. We then investigate whether this symmetry survives quantization. While the duality symmetry is preserved at the quantum level in flat spacetime, we find that it is anomalously broken in curved backgrounds. As a result, an imbalance between right- and left-handed gravitons could be excited from the vacuum. This effect represents a chiral anomaly for massless spin-two fields, generalizing known results for fermions and spin-one photon fields.

Close

PrevNext

View figure in article

• Gravitational waves
• Quantum fields in curved spacetime