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The experimental observation of a clear quantum signature of gravity is believed to be out of the grasp of current technology. However, several recent promising proposals to test the possible existence of non-classical features of gravity…
Two fundamental, and unsolved problems in physics are: i) the resolution of the "measurement problem" in quantum mechanics ii) the quantization of strongly nonlinear (nonabelian) gauge theories. The aim of this paper is to suggest that…
The possibility that gravity plays a role in the collapse of the quantum wave function has been considered in the literature, and it is of relevance not only because it would provide a solution to the measurement problem in quantum theory,…
One of the main technical obstacles in constructing a consistent theory of quantum gravity is that the metric itself defines the causal structure required for quantization. This motivates implementing quantum aspects of gravity through an…
It is univocally anticipated that in a theory of quantum gravity, there exist quantum superpositions of semiclassical states of spacetime geometry. Such states could arise for example, from a source mass in a superposition of spatial…
We study the loss of spatial coherence in the extended wave function of fullerenes due to collisions with background gases. From the gradual suppression of quantum interference with increasing gas pressure we are able to support…
The specific advance of this work is to propose a mechanism by which superpositions collapse during measurement of the separated subsystems of entangled quantum states. It is shown how the phase that locks together entangled states plays a…
We discuss a model where a spontaneous quantum collapse is induced by the gravitational interaction, treated classically. Its dynamics couples the standard wave function of a system with the Bohmian positions of its particles, which are…
The Diosi-Penrose model of quantum-classical boundary postulates gravity-related spontaneous wave function collapse of massive degrees of freedom. The decoherence effects of the collapses are in principle detectable if not masked by the…
Witnessing the quantum nature of spacetime is an exceptionally challenging task. However, the quantum gravity-induced entanglement of matter (QGEM) protocol proposes such a test by testing entanglement between adjacent matter-wave…
High contrast matter-wave interferometry is essential in various fundamental quantum mechanical experiments as well as for technical applications. Thereby, contrast and sensitivity are typically reduced by decoherence and dephasing effects.…
Preparing and detecting spatially extended quantum superpositions of a massive object comprises an important fundamental test of quantum theory. These quantum states are extremely fragile and tend to quickly decay into incoherent mixtures…
We argue that it is fundamentally impossible to recover information about quantum superpositions when a system has interacted with a sufficiently large number of degrees of freedom of the environment. This is due to the fact that gravity…
Recently, several proposals have been made to test the quantum superposition principle in the mesoscopic regime. Most of these tests consist of a careful measurement of the loss of interference due to decoherence. Here we consider, instead,…
The effects of fluctuating boundaries on a superposition state of a quantum particle in a box is studied. We consider a model in one space dimension in which the initial state is a coherent superposition of two energy eigenstates. The…
Understanding the interplay between quantum mechanical systems and gravity is a crucial step towards unifying these two fundamental ideas. Recent theoretical developments have explored how global properties of spacetime would cause a…
Inspired by an ontic view of the wavefunction in quantum mechanics and motivated by the universal interaction of gravity, we discuss a possible gravity implication in the state collapse mechanism. Concretely, we investigate the stability of…
Quantum mechanics and the theory of gravity are presently not compatible. A particular question is whether gravity causes decoherence - an unavoidable source of noise. Several models for gravitational decoherence have been proposed, not all…
Quantum decoherence can arise due to classical fluctuations in the parameters which define the dynamics of the system. In this case decoherence, and complementary noise, is manifest when data from repeated measurement trials are combined.…
Recently a theoretical and an experimental protocol known as quantum gravity induced entanglement of masses (QGEM) has been proposed to test the quantum nature of gravity using two mesoscopic masses each placed in a superposition of two…