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In the classical view of General Relativity, time moves slower near massive objects where the gravitational field (spacetime curvature) is stronger. In the quantum view however, the gravitational force is produced by the quantum field represented by gravitons as its gauge bosons.

It appears, the more virtual gravitons are there (stronger quantum field), the slower time moves, but why? The concept of the gravitational attraction can be explained by the math of the exchange of gravitons, but how can the gravitational time dilation be explained at the quantum level?

I understand that we don't yet have a full theory of quantum gravity to explain what happens at the Plank scale in singularities. However, my question is far from such extremes and should have a logical answer without the full theory of quantum gravity.

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  • $\begingroup$ I was interested in this once, and found that there's an explanation in Feynman's lectures on gravitation bit.ly/2xZO1fi but I never quite got to the bottom of it. Hopefully someone else can spell out the argument for us. $\endgroup$ – Mitchell Porter Sep 23 '17 at 10:12
  • $\begingroup$ In what model of not-full quantum gravity do you want this question to be answered? They don't even all have gravitons! This question, like so many about "gravitons", seems underspecified since there is no "Standard Model with gravitons" that would be what we always go to. $\endgroup$ – ACuriousMind♦ Sep 23 '17 at 11:02
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    $\begingroup$ @ACuriousMind: In any model that has gravitons and accounts for the gravitational time dilation. If different models provide different explanations and you could highlight the differences, it would be fascinating to compare! $\endgroup$ – safesphere Sep 23 '17 at 18:10

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