2026-07-072026-07-07http://salesiana.dossiersoluciones.com/handle/123456789/201069We study the renormalized energy-momentum tensor of gravitons in a de Sitter space-time. After canonically quantizing only the physical degrees of freedom, we adopt the standard adiabatic subtraction used for massless minimally coupled scalar fields as a regularization procedure and find that the energy density of gravitons in the E(3) invariant vacuum is proportional to H^4, where H is the Hubble parameter, but with a positive sign. According to this result the scalar expansion rate, which is gauge invariant in de Sitter space-time, is increased by the fluctuations. This implies that gravitons may then add to conformally coupled matter in driving the Starobinsky model of inflation.5 pages, revtex, final version accepted for publication in PRDGeneral Relativity and Quantum CosmologyAstrophysicsHigh Energy Physics - PhenomenologyHigh Energy Physics - Theorytext