Erik Verlinde's theory of entropic gravity [arXiv:1001.0785], postulating that gravity is not a fundamental force but rather emerges thermodynamically, has garnered much attention as a possible resolution to the quantum gravity problem. Some have ruled this theory out on grounds that entropic forces are by nature noisy and entropic gravity would therefore display far more decoherence than is observed in ultra-cold neutron experiments. We address this criticism by modeling linear gravity acting on small objects as an open quantum system. In the strong coupling limit, when the model's unitless free parameter $σ$ goes to infinity, the entropic master equation recovers conservative gravity. We show that the proposed master equation is fully compatible with the \textit{q}\textsc{Bounce} experiment for ultra-cold neutrons as long as $σ\gtrsim 250$ at $90\%$ confidence. Furthermore, the entropic master equation predicts energy increase and decoherence on long time scales and for large masses, phenomena which tabletop experiments could test. In addition, comparing entropic gravity's energy increase to that of the Diósi-Penrose model for gravity induced decoherence indicates that the two theories are incompatible. These findings support the theory of entropic gravity, motivating future experimental and theoretical research.
The uncertainty principle is an inherent characteristic of quantum mechanics. This principle can be formulated in various form. Fundamentally, this principle can be expressed in terms of the standard deviation of the measured observables. In quantum information theory the preferred mathematical quantity to express the entropic uncertainty relation is the Shannon's entropy. In this work, we consider the generalized entropic uncertainty relation in which there is an additional particle as a quantum memory. Alice measures on her particle $A$ and Bob, with memory particle $B$, predicts the Alice's…
We analyze the dynamics of a gravity-induced entanglement for N massive particles. Considering the linear configuration of these particles, we investigate the entanglement between a specific pair of particles under the influence of the gravitational interaction between the massive particles. As the particle number increases, the specific particle pair decoheres more easily due to the gravitational interaction with other particles. The time scale of the gravity-induced decoherence is analytically determined. We also discuss the entanglement dynamics of initially entangled particles, which exemp…
The double slit experiment is iconic and widely used in classrooms to demonstrate the fundamental mystery of quantum physics. The puzzling feature is that the probability of an electron arriving at the detector when both slits are open is not the sum of the probabilities when the slits are open separately. The superposition principle of quantum mechanics tells us to add amplitudes rather than probabilities and this results in interference. This experiment defies our classical intuition that the probabilities of exclusive events add. In understanding the emergence of the classical world from th…
Recent works have proved that semi-classical theories of gravity needed not be fundamentally inconsistent, at least in the Newtonian regime. Using the machinery of continuous measurement theory and feedback, it was shown that one could construct well behaved models of hybrid quantum-classical dynamics at the price of an imposed (non unique) decoherence structure. We introduce a principle of least decoherence (PLD) which allows to naturally single out a unique model from all the available options; up to some unspecified short distance regularization scale. Interestingly, the resulting model is …
In Crull (2015) it is argued that, in order to confront outstanding problems in cosmology and quantum gravity, interpretational aspects of quantum theory can by bypassed because decoherence is able to resolve them. As a result, Crull (2015) concludes that our focus on conceptual and interpretational issues, while dealing with such matters in Okon and Sudarsky (2014), is avoidable and even pernicious. Here we will defend our position by showing in detail why decoherence does not help in the resolution of foundational questions in quantum mechanics, such as the measurement problem or the emergen…
Entropic dynamics (ED) is a general framework for constructing indeterministic dynamical models based on entropic methods. ED has been used to derive or reconstruct both non-relativistic quantum mechanics and quantum field theory in curved space-time. Here we propose a model for a quantum scalar field propagating in a dynamical space-time. The approach rests on a few key ingredients: (1) Rather than modelling the dynamics of the fields, ED models the dynamics of their probabilities. (2) In accordance with the standard entropic methods of inference the dynamics is dictated by information encode…
We consider information-theoretic inequalities of the Bell type in the presence of decoherence. It is natural that too strong coupling with the environment can prevent an observation of quantum correlations. In this regard, the use of various entropic functions may give additional capabilities to reveal desired correlations. It was already shown that the Bell and Leggett-Garg inequalities in terms conditional Tsallis entropies are more sensitive in the cases of detection inefficiencies. In this paper, we study capabilities of generalized conditional entropies of the Tsallis type in analyzing t…
It is shown that Non-unitary Newtonian Gravity (NNG) model admits a simple interpretation in terms of Feynman path integral, in which the sum over all possible histories is replaced by a summation over pairs of paths. Correlations between different paths are allowed by a fundamental decoherence mechanism of gravitational origin and can be interpreted as a kind of communication between different branches of the wave function. The ensuing formulation could be used in turn as a motivation to introduce Non-unitary Gravity itself.
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 accessible by relatively inexpensive table-top experiments, way before the scales where true quantum gravity effects become important. Therefore, they can provide a first experimental view on gravity in the quantum regime. We will survey models of decoherence induced both by classical and quantum gravitational fluctuations; it will be manifest that a clear unders…
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 seem to be accessible by the state-of-art table-top experiments. Among them, some aim at measuring the gravitationally induced entanglement between two masses which would be a distinct non-classical signature of gravity. We explicitly study, in two of these proposals, the effects of decoherence on the system's dynamics by monitoring the corresponding degree o…
In Nature Phys. 11, 668 (2015) (Ref. [1]), a composite particle prepared in a pure initial quantum state and propagated in a uniform gravitational field is shown to undergo a decoherence process at a rate determined by the gravitational acceleration. By assuming Einstein's Equivalence Principle to be valid, we demonstrate, first in a Lorentz frame with accelerating detectors, and then directly in the Lab frame with uniform gravity, that the dephasing between the different internal states arise not from gravity but rather from differences in their rest mass, and the mass dependence of the de Br…
Entanglement is known to be an essential resource for many quantum information processes. However, it is now known that some quantum features may be acheived with quantum discord, a generalized measure of quantum correlation. In this paper, we study how quantum discord, or more specifically, the measures of entropic discord and geometric discord are affected by the influence of amplitude damping decoherence. We also show that a protocol deploying weak measurement and quantum measurement reversal can effectively protect quantum discord from amplitude damping decoherence, enabling to distribute …
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 locations. If, after eliminating all non-gravitational interactions between them, the particles become entangled, one can conclude that the gravitational potential is induced via a quantum mediator, i.e. a virtual graviton. In this paper, we examine a range of different experimental set-ups, considering different geometries and the number of spatially superpose…
The notion of time is given a different footing in Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity, treated as a parameter in the former and being an observer dependent property in the later. From a operational point of view time is simply the correlation between a system and a clock, where an idealized clock can be modelled as a two level systems. We investigate the dynamics of clocks interacting gravitationally by treating the gravitational interaction as a classical information channel. In particular, we focus on the decoherence rates and temporal resolution of arrays of $N$ clocks showing how the…
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 spread in position of a freely falling nanosphere. We study in depth the dependence of this spread on self-gravity in the presence of decoherence (exotic and non-exotic). We show that the influence of self-gravity is robust in the presence of weak decoherence, and quantify this robustness by introducing a new parameter, the critical decoherence, aimed a…
The uncertainty principle is an important principle in quantum theory. Based on this principle, it is impossible to predict the measurement outcomes of two incompatible observables, simultaneously. Uncertainty principle basically is expressed in terms of the standard deviation of the measured observables. In quantum information theory, it is shown that the uncertainty principle can be expressed by Shannon's entropy. The entopic uncertainty lower bound can be altered by considering a particle as the quantum memory which is correlated with the measured particle. We assume that the quantum memory…
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 of which can be described quantum mechanically. In parallel, several experiments have been proposed to test some of these models, where the data obtained by such experiments is analyzed assuming quantum mechanics. Since we may need to modify quantum mechanics to account for gravity, however, one may question the validity of using quantum mechanics as a calc…
Hypothetical models have been proposed in which explicit collapse mechanisms prevent the superposition principle to hold at large scales. In particular, the model introduced by Ellis and co-workers [Phys. Lett. B ${\bf 221}$, 113 (1989)] suggests that quantum gravity might be responsible for the collapse of the wavefunction of massive objects in spatial superpositions. We here consider a recent experiment reporting on interferometry with atoms delocalized over half a meter for timescale of a second [Nature ${\bf 528}$, 530 (2015)] and show that the corresponding data strongly bound quantum gra…
Recently, Xu et al. [Phys. Rev. A 86, 012113(2012)] explored the behavior of the entropic uncertainty relation under the influence of local unital and nonunital noisy channels for a class of Bell-diagonal states. We here reform their results and investigate the entropic uncertainty relation under the influence of unital and nonunital noisy channels with memory. Different types of noisy channels with memory, such as amplitude damping channel(nonunitary), phase-damping and depolarizing channels(unitary) have been taken into account. Some analytical or numerical results are presented. The effect …
Information that is stored in quantum-mechanical systems can be easily lost because of the interaction with the environment in a process known as decoherence. Possible physical implementations of many processes in quantum information theory involve systems of identical particles, whence comprehension of the dynamics of entanglement induced by decoherence processes in identical-particle open systems becomes relevant. Here we study the effects, and concomitant entanglement evolution, arising from the interaction between a system of two identical fermions and the environment, for two paradigmatic…
Optical lattice clocks can now resolve the height difference below 1 mm within an atomic ensemble by means of gravitational redshift with integration over sufficient amount of time. Further improvement in the stability enables the clocks to resolve the height difference of subsystems within an atomic ensemble that is conventionally interrogated as a single coherent spin state in a single Ramsey sequence, resulting in the dephasing of the coherent spin state. This effect is observable with a clock of a stability of $\lesssim 10^{-21}$ by introducing a single-layer-resolved imaging system for a …
In this work, we investigate the dynamics of quantum correlations captured by entropic and geometric measures of discord under the influence of dissipative channels for widely used two qubit X state with maximally mixed marginals. Identifying the phenomena of the preservation, sudden change and revival of quantum correlation quantifiers, we determine their hierarchy of robustness under memory-less decoherence channels. We find the analytical expressions of decoherence probabilities at which sudden change occur when the first qubit is subjected to the decoherence channels for multiple times. We…
Evolution of tripartite entanglement in three-qubit Quantum Gravity-Induced Entanglement of Masses (QGEM) with quantum decoherence
Instituto de Física Teórica, UAM-CSIC（理论物理研究所，UAM-CSIC）；Van Swinderen Institute for Particle Physics and Gravity, University of Groningen（格罗宁根大学范斯温德恩粒子物理与引力研究所）；Departamento de Física Teórica and CIAFF, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid（马德里自治大学理论物理系及CIAFF）
Differential and Common Decoherence Modes in Witnessing the Quantum Gravity-Induced Entanglement of Matter
University of Groningen（格罗宁根大学）；Van Swinderen Institute for Particle Physics and Gravity, University of Groningen（格罗宁根大学范斯温德恩粒子物理与引力研究所）；Canadian Institute of Theoretical Astrophysics, University of Toronto（多伦多大学加拿大理论天体物理研究所）
We derive the analytical expression of local quantum uncertainty for three-qubit X-states. We give also the expressions of quantum discord and the negativity. A comparison of these three quantum correlations quantifiers is discussed in the special cases of mixed GHZ states and Bell-type states. We find that local quantum uncertainty gives the same amount of non-classical correlations as are measured by entropic quantum discord and goes beyond negativity. We also discuss the dynamics of non-classical correlations under the effect of phase damping, depolarizing and phase reversal channels. We fi…
