# Wouldn't gravitons themselves theoretically be affected by gravity? [duplicate]

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(I wrote this using the assumption that the graviton exists, which I know is not necessarily true; this is asked from a theoretical standpoint)

It is my understanding that General Relativity states all massive and/or energetic particles must be affected by the curvature of spacetime; this stipulation aligns with all known elementary particles. I understand that the graviton, being a particle that reliably interacts with photons, is going to be virtually impossible to detect experimentally. It is almost certainly massless and of a remarkably low energy, but it must possess energy nonetheless. As such, shouldn't gravitons themselves be affected by gravity, creating a paradox in which (increasingly virtual ?) gravitons must interact with other gravitons? Also, assuming that our conception that massless particles always travel at the speed of light holds true for gravitons, wouldn't gravitons themselves not be able to escape from a black hole, annulling the gravitational force of the black hole in the process?

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• I don't see where the paradox is. Gluons self-interact too. Also, possible duplicate of How does gravity escape a black hole? and links therein. – AccidentalFourierTransform Jun 29 at 17:24
• Photons are also massless, but black holes can have electric and magnetic fields. – G. Smith Jun 29 at 18:11
• @AccidentalFourierTransform it is my current understanding that, in QFT, electric fields can be thought of in terms virtual photons, and that this conceptualization should theoretically extend to all of the fundamental forces, including gravity. Shouldn’t this mean that gravitons emitting from a massive object must be affected by a slightly more virtual graviton, which in turn must be affected by an slightly more virtual graviton than that, so on and so forth? Anyways, I’m grateful for the link; I’ll dig into it when I get a chance. Cheers! – QuaternionsRock Jun 29 at 19:42
• @G.Smith wait... what? How? – QuaternionsRock Jun 29 at 19:43
• @QuaternionsRock Your picture of gravitons being affected by virtual gravitons is not wrong. The formalisation of that intuition is what we call the loop expansion. There is nothing paradoxical about that. – AccidentalFourierTransform Jun 29 at 19:54