GRAVITONS FROM LOOPS - NONPERTURBATIVE LOOP-SPACE QUANTUM-GRAVITY CONTAINS THE GRAVITON-PHYSICS APPROXIMATION

We investigate the physical interpretation of the loop states of non-perturbative quantum general relativity in the regime of graviton physics, namely the regime of first order excitations around the Poincare-invariant vacuum. We construct the general form of the loop state functionals invariant under the linearized constraints. We present explicitly the loop state functionals that represent the Poincare-invariant vacuum and the graviton states. We find that physical information emerges entirely from intersections of loops. We obtain these results by utilizing the recently introduced 'map M', which relates the loop-space states of non-perturbative quantum general relativity to the state space of the linearized theory. The general picture of the linearization of the loop-space quantum general relativity is discussed.