Spin gravitational resonance and graviton detection

Understand

We develop a gravitational analogue of spin magnetic resonance, called spin gravitational resonance, whereby a gravitational wave interacts with a magnetic field to produce a spin transition.

• In particular, an external magnetic field separates the energy spin states of a spin-1/2 particle, and the presence of the gravitational wave produces a perturbation in the components of the magnetic field orthogonal to the gravitational wave propagation.
• In this framework we test Dyson's conjecture that individual gravitons cannot be detected.
• Although we find no fundamental laws preventing single gravitons being detected with spin gravitational resonance, we show that it cannot be used in practice, in support of Dyson's conjecture.