They're predicted in Physics, but they've never been detected yet.
The cast of Gravitons - 2010 includes: Steve Campanella Nick Kinerd
All atoms have gravitons in orbit around them. Gravitons have huge orbits & incredible velocities exceeding 10,000 times the speed of light. They are very tiny & create gravity by simply bumping into things. Multiply a tiny bump by billions & you have gravity. Alfred Herman Schrader 2,010
The force you are thinking of of is gravity. Well not so much the gravity but the gravitons in the gravity witch give it the force it has. Without gravitons it is actually a very weak force.
"Gravitons"
Actually the earth's gravity is caused by a particle that pushes called the graviton . All atoms have gravitons in orbit around them. Gravitons have huge orbits & when one of them bumps into something it applies a tiny push. Multiply this push by billions & you have gravity. Why can't we see gravitons ? They travel at 10,000 times (plus) the speed of light & as such, light wont reflect off of them. It is possible to deflect light (photon particles) with gravitons though. This was first discovered by Einstein when he observed the bending of light around heavenly bodies....Alfred Herman Schrader 2,010
for the time being,possible answer is 'gravitons'. resides somewhere in the nuclei of atoms
The mass of matter explains the warping effect of space but what gives the matter mass in the first place? Theorists say there is a large particle, which is a product of symmetry, that gives things mass. And that particle is the Higgs boson.As for gravitons, these are the (theorized) gauge bosons that transmit gravitational force. Think of photons. They transmit electromagnetic forces. The graviton just does the same for gravity. Links can be found below for more information.Said another way, all matter has mass, and things with mass exhibit gravity, and, therefore "warp" spacetime. This we know. But this doesn't do away with the "need" for the Higgs boson and gravitons (or something else) that actually explains mass and why things with mass exhibit the property of having gravity and "bending" spacetime. We still need an explanation for the observable facts, (mass = gravity = deformation of spacetime), and the mechanism that "carries" these properties and "causes" them is theorized to the be the Higgs boson. (Further, if not the Higgs and gravitons, what is it, then, that underpins the characteristics of matter?)
Gravitons are hypothetical particles that are believed to mediate the force of gravity in quantum physics. They are thought to play a role in unifying the fundamental forces of nature, specifically by helping to reconcile the theory of general relativity with quantum mechanics. The existence of gravitons could provide a deeper understanding of how gravity interacts with the other fundamental forces, such as electromagnetism and the strong and weak nuclear forces.
Tough question! See: http://einstein.phys.uwm.edu/forum_thread.php?id=3212 Easy question. Easy answer. Gravitons orbit atoms with incredibly huge paths. The gravitons that originate & orbit around the center of our Milky Way galaxy travel to the edge of our MW galaxy & back in a few seconds. But, gravitons don't "radiate" they orbit. The fundamental mass of anything is comprised of the nuclei or center of atoms. Electrons & gravitons are so much lighter as to be insignificant to the total mass. And gravitons remain in orbit & stay with the atoms at all times. Electrons come & go, but most remain as well. So, bodies wont lose mass in connection with gravitons (answer). What is interesting though, is that the mass of a body can change very slightly depending on its temperature. Protons & neutrons, the particles that make up the nucleus of an atom, are made of photon particles (light). If you heat, say a chunk of iron enough, it will glow. The glowing you see are photons blasting out of the protons & neutron's. As the iron cools, it will become lighter, but only by a very small amount in accord with this formula E = MC 2 This effect really gets interesting when you start dealing with refrigerants, but in the interest of time, will left for a later discussion...Alfred Herman Schrader 2,010
Gravitons are theoretical particles that are believed to mediate the force of gravity in quantum mechanics. Since gravitons do not have a well-defined size in the classical sense like everyday objects, their size is described within the framework of quantum field theory, where they are considered point-like particles with zero size.
A space-borne observatory; consisting of spacecraft that fire lasers at each other and use interferometry to detect minute phase changes, with many millions of kilometres between each spacecraft; may be able to detect gravitational waves, which are coherent states of many gravitons. Detecting single gravitons is currently impossible because the interactions between gravitons and matter are so rare, that to sufficiently shield a detector against neutrinos, the shielding would collapse into a black hole.
First we must answer the question, "What is gravity?" There are many opposite charges that radiate electric fields. Two electric fields coming from opposite charges can pair up and travel through anything until they encounter opposite charges, such that the lower charge is pulled down first and then the upper charge is pulled down. The electric fields are absorbed by charges opposite from the ones that they originally came from. The time between the pulling down is according to the speed of light in the direction that the graviton was traveling. Only those gravitons that meet that special constraint are effective. That is why the gravitational "force" is so much weaker than the unpaired bare electric "force". The more gravitons (from a direction) meeting those dynamic conditions, the greater the force on an object. The proper answer is not exactly the mass of the object producing the gravitons for "doing the pulling", and the distance (r) from the pair of charges being pulled downward to the object producing the gravitons that will later do the pulling. This is because gravitons are absorbed, as they encounter opposite charges having just the right dynamical properties. Space opens up as r times r but only the remaining unabsorbed gravitons expand outwards for a while, as r times r. Because gravitons are actually discontinuous, with a large enough separation of r, it would be possible that there are no surviving gravitons, no matter what the mass of the object producing the gravitons. That is why the "universe" is expanding. With enough mass in the way, the gravitons are all eventually absorbed. Each bare charge is an infinite duration source of power. Each bare charge gives up a vast flux of electric fields radiating outward at the speed of light. Charges encountered by those electric fields have their momenta changed upon absorbing those electric fields. In the frame of the encountered charge before the electric field is absorbed, the charge afterwards has absorbed some energy from the electric field, as it is afterwards moving. Useful energy can be delivered to a mass rotating about a horizontal axis, according to the Bessler principle. There is actually nothing at all static about the electric field or the gravitational field. They both propagate at the speed of light in pure vacuum.