English

Matter waves and clocks do not observe uniform gravitational fields

Quantum Physics 2024-04-05 v1 General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology

Abstract

In a uniform gravitational field, classical test objects fall universally. Any reference object or observer will fall in the same universal manner. Therefore, a uniform gravitational field cannot create dynamics between observers and classical test objects. The influence of a uniform gravitational field on matter waves and clocks, however, is described inconsistently throughout research and education. To illustrate, we discuss the behavior of a matter-wave interferometer and a clock redshift experiment in a uniform gravitational field. As a consistent formulation of the equivalence principle implies, a uniform gravitational field has no observable influence on these systems and is physically equivalent to the absence of gravity.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2404.03057,
  title  = {Matter waves and clocks do not observe uniform gravitational fields},
  author = {Peter Asenbaum and Chris Overstreet and Mark A. Kasevich},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2404.03057},
  year   = {2024}
}

Comments

12 pages, 2 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-28T15:43:31.321Z