Although quantum physics is well understood in inertial reference frames (flat spacetime), a current challenge is the search for experimental evidence of non-trivial or unexpected behaviour of quantum systems in non-inertial frames. Here, we present a novel test of quantum mechanics in a non-inertial reference frame: we consider Hong-Ou-Mandel (HOM) interference on a rotating platform and study the effect of uniform rotation on the distinguishability of the photons. Both theory and experiments show that the rotational motion induces a relative delay in the photon arrival times at the exit beamsplitter and that this delay is observed as a shift in the position of the HOM dip. This experiment can be extended to a full general relativistic test of quantum physics using satellites in Earth orbit and indicates a new route towards the use of photonic technologies for investigating quantum mechanics at the interface with relativity.
Photon antibunching in the light scattered by single quantum emitters is one of the hallmarks of quantum optics, providing an unequivocal demonstration of the quantized nature of the electromagnetic field. Antibunching can be intuitively understood by the need for a two-level system lying in its lower state after emitting a photon to be re-excited into the upper one before a second emission can take place. Here we show that such a picture breaks down in the ultrastrong light-matter coupling regime, when the coupling strength becomes comparable to the bare emitter frequency. Specialising to the…
Pseudothermal light by scattering laser light from rotating groundglass has been extensively employed to study optical coherence in both classical and quantum optics ever since its invention in 1960s. In this paper, we will show that by replacing the invariant intensity laser light in pseudothermal light source with intensity modulated laser light, superbunching pseudothermal light can be obtained. Two-photon interference in Feynman's path integral theory is employed to interpret the phenomenon. Two-photon superbunching is experimentally observed by employing common instruments in optical labo…
The problem of Dirac's equation in a rotating electromagnetic field can be reduced to the stationary by using a transformation for point rotating reference frames. The general form of the non-Galilean transformation is deduced in the paper. For the non-Galilean transformation time is different in the rotating and resting frame. This transformation contains a constant, with the dimension of time. The constant is assumed to be fundamental. The transformation forms the necessary condition for the existence of periodic, bounded and square integrable solutions in both the rotating and resting frame…
We canonically quantize a spin-less non-relativistic point particle in a rigidly rotating cylinder symmetric reference system. The resulting quantum mechanics is investigated in the case of both a two-dimensional cylindrical shell and in the case of the full rotating cylinder; in both cases energy eigenstates exist which exhibit rotation induced negative energies. Based on a reanalysis of the classical Sagnac effect a novel way to compute the quantum Sagnac phase shift is deduced. It is pointed out that certain states on both the cylindrical shell and in the bulk give rise to a novel anomalous…
We study quantum optics with the atoms coupled to the quantized electromagnetic (EM) field in a non-inertial reference frame by making use of quantum field theory in curved spacetime. We rigorously establish the microscopic model for a two-level atom interacting with the quantized EM field in a rotating ring cavity by deriving a Jaynes-Cummings (JC) type Hamiltonian. Due to the two fold degeneracy of the ring cavity modes, the Rabi splitting exhibits three rather than two resonant frequency peaks. We find that the heights of the two side peaks show a sensitive linear dependence on the rotating…
Based on the general expressions for the tangential force and heating rate of a small polarizable particle during translational-rotational motion in the field of blackbody radiation (in the reference frame of latter),the tangential force in reference frame comoving with particle is calculated. It is this force determines the particle deceleration in the frame of reference of blackbody radiation.
To fully utilize the energy-time degree of freedom of photons for optical quantum information processes, it is necessary to control and characterize the quantum states of the photons at extremely short time scales. For measurements beyond the time resolution of available detectors, two-photon interference with a photon in a short time reference pulse may be a viable alternative. In this paper, we derive the temporal measurement operators for the bunching statistics of a single photon input state with a reference photon. It is shown that the effects of the pulse shape of the reference pulse can…
Quantum effects on a neutral particle (atom or molecule) with an induced electric dipole moment are investigated when it is subject to the Kratzer potential and a scalar potential proportional to the radial distance. In addition, this neutral is placed in a region with electric and magnetic fields. This system is analysed in both nonrotating and rotating reference frames. Then, it is shown that bound state solutions to the Schrödinger equation can be achieved and, in the search for polynomial solutions to the radial wave function, a restriction on the values of the cyclotron frequency is analy…
We consider the time delay of interfering single photons oppositely traveling in the Kerr metric of a rotating massive object. Classically, the time delay shows up as a phase difference between coherent sources of light. In quantum mechanics, the loss in visibility due to the indistinguishability of interfering photons is directly related to the time delay. We can thus observe the Kerr frame-dragging effect using the Hong-Ou-Mandel (HOM) dip, a purely quantum mechanical effect. By Einstein's equivalence principle, we can analogously consider a rotating turntable to simulate the Kerr metric. We…
We propose a quantum theory of rotating light beams and study some of its properties. Such beams are polychromatic and have either a slowly rotating polarization or a slowly rotating transverse mode pattern. We show there are, for both cases, three different natural types of modes that qualify as rotating, one of which is a new type not previously considered. We discuss differences between these three types of rotating modes on the one hand and non-rotating modes as viewed from a rotating frame of reference on the other. We present various examples illustrating the possible use of rotating pho…
We discuss results obtained recently for a quantum-mechanical model given by a neutral particle with a magnetic quadrupole moment in a radial electric field and a scalar potential proportional to the radial variable in cylindrical coordinates that also includes the noninertial effects of a rotating reference frame. We show that the conjectured allowed values of the cyclotron frequency are a mere artifact of the truncation of the power series used to solve the radial eigenvalue equation. Our analysis proves that the analytical expression for the eigenvalues are far from correct.
Quantum correlations in the state of four-level atom are investigated by using generic unitary transforms of the classical (diagonal) density matrix. Partial cases of pure state, $X$-state, Werner state are studied in details. The geometrical meaning of unitary Hilbert reference-frame rotations generating entanglement in the initially separable state is discussed. Characteristics of the entanglement in terms of concurrence, entropy and negativity are obtained as functions of the unitary matrix rotating the reference frame.
Photon interference and bunching are widely studied quantum effects that have also been proposed for high precision measurements. Here we construct a theoretical description of photon-interferometry on rotating platforms, specifically exploring the relation between non-inertial motion, relativity, and quantum mechanics. On the basis of this, we then propose an experiment where photon entanglement can be revealed or concealed solely by controlling the rotational motion of an interferometer, thus providing a route towards studies at the boundary between quantum mechanics and relativity.
We show that the Wigner-Bargmann program of grounding non-relativistic quantum mechanics in the unitary projective representations of the Galilei group can be extended to include all non-inertial reference frames. The key concept is the \emph{Galilean line group}, the group of transformations that ties together all accelerating reference frames, and its representations. These representations are constructed under the natural constraint that they reduce to the well-known unitary, projective representations of the Galilei group when the transformations are restricted to inertial reference frames…
We investigate the simultaneous estimation of the intensity and the orientation of a magnetic field by the multi-parameter quantum Fisher information matrix. A general expression is achieved for the simultaneous estimation precision of the intensity and the orientation, which is better than the independent estimation precision for the given number of spin states. Moreover, we consider an imperfect measurement device, coarsened measurement reference. For the case of the measurement reference rotating around the $y-$axis randomly, the simultaneous estimation always performs better than the indep…
The Kerr metric of spherically symmetric gravitational field is analyzed through the coordinate transformation from the rotating frame to fixing frame, and consequently that the inertial force field (with the exception of the centrifugal force field) in the rotating system is one part of its gravitomagnetic field is verified. We investigate the spin-rotation coupling and, by making use of Lewis-Riesenfeld invariant theory, we obtain exact solutions of the Schrödinger equation of a spinning particle in a time-dependent rotating reference frame. A potential application of these exact solutions t…
We analyze a quantum mechanical gyroscope which is modeled as a large spin and used as a reference against which to measure the angular momenta of spin-1/2 particles. These measurements induce a back-action on the reference which is the central focus of our study. We begin by deriving explicit expressions for the quantum channel representing the back-action. Then, we analyze the dynamics incurred by the reference when it is used to sequentially measure particles drawn from a fixed ensemble. We prove that the reference thermalizes with the measured particles and find that generically, the therm…
We study the quantization of many-body systems in three dimensions in rotating coordinate frames using a gauge invariant formulation of the dynamics. We consider reference frames defined by linear gauge conditions, and discuss their Gribov ambiguities and commutator algebra. We construct the momentum operators, inner-product and Hamiltonian in those gauges, for systems with and without translation invariance. The analogy with the quantization of non-Abelian Yang-Mills theories in non-covariant gauges is emphasized. Our results are applied to quasi-rigid systems in the Eckart frame.
We study the quantization of many-body systems in two dimensions in rotating coordinate frames using a gauge invariant formulation of the dynamics. We consider reference frames defined by linear and quadratic gauge conditions. In both cases we discuss their Gribov ambiguities and commutator algebra. We construct the momentum operators, inner-product and Hamiltonian in both types of gauges, for systems with and without translation invariance. The analogy with the quantization of QED in non-covariant gauges is emphasized. Our results are applied to quasi-rigid systems in the Eckart frame.
With reference to the vacuum induced Berry phase (VIBP) obtained in the interaction of a spin-1/2 particle with quantized irradiation field under rotating-wave approximation (RWA), we present completely different treatment for the VIBP by a fully quantum mechanical treatment beyond the RWA, which gives a new definition of the VIBP and indicates the validity of RWA to be relevant not only to the energy conservation and comparison of characteristic parameters, but also to more subtle physics, such as the geometric property of the state evolution. Our result is of conceptual importance and also o…
A precessing spin observed in a rotating frame of reference appears frequency-shifted, an effect analogous to the precession of a Foucault pendulum observed on the rotating Earth. This frequency shift can be understood as arising from a magnetic pseudo-field in the rotating frame that nevertheless has physically significant consequences, such as the Barnett effect. Detecting these pseudo-fields is experimentally challenging, as a rotating-frame sensor is required. Previous work has realised classical rotating-frame detectors. Here we use quantum sensors, nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centres, in a rap…
Spin precession for an EPR pair of spin-1/2 particles in equatorial orbits around a Kerr-Newman black hole is studied. Hovering observers are introduced to ensure fixed reference frames in order to perform the Wigner rotation. These observers also guarantee a reliable direction to compare spin states in rotating black holes. The velocity of the particle due frame-dragging is explicitly incorporated by addition of velocities with respect the hovering observers and the corresponding spin precession angle is computed. The spin-singlet state is observed to be mixed with the spin-triplet by dynamic…
