Related papers: Black Holes Decohere Quantum Superpositions
Black holes are more than just odd-looking curiosities in gravity theory. They uniquely intertwine the basic principles of General Relativity with those of Quantum Theory. Just by demanding that they nevertheless obey acceptable laws of…
The quantum superposition principle states that quantum-mechanical systems such as atoms can be placed in a superposition of mass-energy eigenstates. Inspired by this idea and the seminal conjecture of Bekenstein, who proposed that black…
Quantum entanglement lies at the heart of quantum information theory, with applications to quantum computing, teleportation, cryptography and communication. In the apparently separate world of quantum gravity, the Hawking effect of…
The definition of matter states on spacelike hypersurfaces of a 1+1 dimensional black hole spacetime is considered. Because of small quantum fluctuations in the mass of the black hole, the usual approximation of treating the gravitational…
It has recently been proposed that quantum gravity might lead to the decoherence of superpositions in energy, corresponding to a discretization of time at the Planck scale. At first sight the proposal seems amenable to experimental…
Unitarity is a pillar of quantum theory. Nevertheless, it is also a source of several of its conceptual problems. We note that in a world where measurements are relational, as is the case in gravitation, quantum mechanics exhibits a…
Hawking's black hole information puzzle highlights the incompatibility between our present understanding of gravity and quantum physics. However, Hawking's prediction of black-hole evaporation is at a semiclassical level. One therefore…
We analyse a decoherence effect, caused by the gravitational interaction between a massive body and the electromagnetic field. Assuming a quantum version of the light bending interaction, we show that it leads to decoherence of the mass if…
Black holes are presumed to have an ideal ability to absorb and keep matter. Whatever comes close to the event horizon, a boundary separating the inside region of a black hole from the outside world, inevitably goes in and remains inside…
Quantum coherence is important in quantum mechanics, and its essence is from superposition principle. We study the coherence of any two pure states and that of their arbitrary superposition, and obtain the relationship between them. In the…
Recent work by Danielson, Satishchandran, and Wald (DSW) has shown that black holes -- and, in fact, Killing horizons more generally -- impart a fundamental rate of decoherence on all nearby quantum superpositions. The effect can be…
We investigate the experimental capabilities required to test whether black holes destroy information. We show that an experiment capable of illuminating the information puzzle must necessarily be able to detect or manipulate macroscopic…
A decoherence mechanism caused by spacetime curvature is discussed. The spin state of a particle is shown to decohere if only the particle moves in a curved spacetime. In particular, when a particle is near the event horizon of a black…
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…
It has recently been suggested that black holes may be described as condensates of weakly interacting gravitons at a critical point, exhibiting strong quantum effects. In this paper, we study a model system of attractive bosons in one…
Black holes are extreme manifestations of general relativity, so one might hope that exotic quantum effects would be amplified in their vicinities, perhaps providing clues to quantum gravity. The commonly accepted treatment of quantum…
It has been shown that the quantum state of the graviton field outside a black hole horizon carries information about the internal state of the hole. We explain how this allows unitary evaporation: the final radiation state is a complex…
We study the quantum gravity corrected decoherence of quantum superpositions in the near-extremal Reissner-Nordstr\"om black holes. By employing the effective field theory approach, we model the black hole as a quantum system coupled to an…
Bringing gravity into a quantum-mechanical framework is likely the most profound remaining problem in fundamental physics. The "unitarity crisis" for black hole evolution appears to be a key facet of this problem, whose resolution will…
The decoherence mechanism of a single atom inside a high-Q cavity is studied, and the results are compared with experimental observations performed by M. Brune et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 76, 1800 (1996)]. Collision dephasing and cavity…