English

On-chip quantum interference of a superconducting microsphere

Quantum Physics 2018-01-26 v3 Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics

Abstract

We propose and analyze an all-magnetic scheme to perform a Young's double slit experiment with a micron-sized superconducting sphere of mass 1013\gtrsim {10}^{13} amu. We show that its center of mass could be prepared in a spatial quantum superposition state with an extent of the order of half a micrometer. The scheme is based on magnetically levitating the sphere above a superconducting chip and letting it skate through a static magnetic potential landscape where it interacts for short intervals with quantum circuits. In this way, a protocol for fast quantum interferometry using quantum magnetomechanics is passively implemented. Such a table-top earth-based quantum experiment would operate in a parameter regime where gravitational energy scales become relevant. In particular, we show that the faint parameter-free gravitationally-induced decoherence collapse model, proposed by Di\'osi and Penrose, could be unambiguously falsified.

Cite

@article{arxiv.1603.01553,
  title  = {On-chip quantum interference of a superconducting microsphere},
  author = {H. Pino and J. Prat-Camps and K. Sinha and B. P. Venkatesh and O. Romero-Isart},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1603.01553},
  year   = {2018}
}

Comments

21 pages, 5 figures. Revised version

R2 v1 2026-06-22T13:04:04.520Z