General Relativistic Decoherence with Applications to Dark Matter Detection
Abstract
Quantum mechanics allows for states in macroscopic superpositions, but they ordinarily undergo rapid decoherence due to interactions with their environment. A system that only interacts gravitationally, such as an arrangement of dark matter (DM), may exhibit slow decoherence. In this Letter, we compute the decoherence rate of a quantum object within general relativity, focusing on superposed metric oscillations; a rare quantum general relativistic result. For axion DM in a superposition of the field's phase, we find that DM in the Milky Way is robust against decoherence, while a spatial superposition is not. This novel phase behavior may impact direct detection experiments.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2103.15892,
title = {General Relativistic Decoherence with Applications to Dark Matter Detection},
author = {Itamar J. Allali and Mark P. Hertzberg},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2103.15892},
year = {2021}
}
Comments
7 pages in double column format, 1 figure. V2: Updated to resemble version published in PRL