Related papers: Gravity-mediated decoherence
Real world quantum systems are open to perpetual influence from the wider environment. Quantum gravitational fluctuations provide a most fundamental source of the environmental influence through their universal interactions with all forms…
The quite different behaviors exhibited by microscopic and macroscopic systems with respect to quantum interferences suggest the existence of a borderline beyond which quantum systems loose their coherences and can be described classically.…
We discuss effects of loss of coherence in low energy quantum systems caused by or related to gravitation, referred to as gravitational decoherence. These effects, resulting from random metric fluctuations, for instance, promise to be…
The physics of low-energy quantum systems is usually studied without explicit consideration of the background spacetime. Phenomena inherent to quantum theory on curved space-time, such as Hawking radiation, are typically assumed to be only…
We study how self gravitation of quantum systems affects the quantum coherence present in their state. Spatial superpositions of static, large, heavy systems tend to rapidly lose coherence, whereas light or massless particles are…
Physical systems in real life are inextricably linked to their surroundings and never completely separated from them. Truly closed systems do not exist. The phenomenon of decoherence, which is brought about by the interaction with the…
We present a simple calculation leading to the quantum gravitationally-induced decoherence of a spatial superposition of a massive object in the linear coupling regime. The point of this calculation is to illustrate that the…
The fact that gravitational environments cannot be shielded (since gravity is universal) makes them of great theoretical interest to decoherence mechanisms and to the quantum-to-classical transition. While past results seemed to indicate…
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…
One of the outstanding questions in modern physics is how to test whether gravity is classical or quantum in a laboratory. Recently there has been a proposal to test the quantum nature of gravity by creating quantum superpositions of two…
A small quantum system is studied which is a superposition of states localized in different positions in a static gravitational field. The time evolution of the correlation between different positions is investigated, and it is seen that…
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…
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…
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…
A theory recently proposed by the author aims to explain decoherence and the thermodynamical behaviour of closed systems within a conservative, unitary, framework for quantum gravity by assuming that the operators tied to the gravitational…
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…
Despite the fact that we have some proposals for the quantum theory of gravity like string theory or loop quantum gravity, we do not have any experimental evidence supporting any of these theories. Actually, we do not have experimental…
The intersection between quantum mechanics and gravitational physics has been providing challenging puzzles for decades. In this thesis, we study the dynamics of an open quantum system coupled with a bath of gravitons, the quanta of the…
Decoherence is the phenomenon of non-unitary dynamics that arises as a consequence of coupling between a system and its environment. It has important harmful implications for quantum information processing, and various solutions to the…
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…