English

Particle detector in a position-superposed black hole spacetime

Quantum Physics 2026-04-15 v1 General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology High Energy Physics - Theory

Abstract

We calculate the response of an Unruh--DeWitt detector in a 2+1d spacetime that contains a BTZ black hole in a superposition of locations. Upon performing a Quantum Reference Frame (QRF) transformation, this can also be seen as a detector in a superposition of locations in a single classical black hole spacetime. We use this to derive the form of the interaction of the detector and scalar field in such a superposition of spacetimes, ignoring backreaction. We define a measurement whose outcome probabilities contain a nonclassical contribution that would be absent for a black hole described by a classical mixture of positions. Finally, we compare our results with a previously studied setup involving a mass-superposed black hole by Foo et al in [Phys. Rev. Lett. 129, 181301 (2022)], and highlight a key difference. We show analytically how this difference arises from singularities in the spectrum probed by the detector.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2604.11897,
  title  = {Particle detector in a position-superposed black hole spacetime},
  author = {Laurens Walleghem and Carlo Cepollaro},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2604.11897},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

9+19 pages, all comments welcome!

R2 v1 2026-07-01T12:07:20.170Z