Vacuum field fluctuations exert a radiation pressure which induces mechanical effects on scatterers. The question naturally arises whether the energy of vacuum fluctuations gives rise to inertia and gravitation in agreement with the general principles of mechanics. As a new approach to this question, we discuss the mechanical effects of quantum field fluctuations on two mirrors building a Fabry-Perot cavity. We first put into evidence that the energy related to Casimir forces is an energy stored on field fluctuations as a result of scattering time delays. We then discuss the forces felt by the mirrors when they move within vacuum field fluctuations, and show that energy stored on vacuum fluctuations contributes to inertia in conformity with the law of inertia of energy. As a further consequence, inertial masses exhibit quantum fluctuations with characteristic spectra in vacuum.
The systematic theory of the formation of the short light pulses in the squeezed state during the propagation in a medium with inertial Kerr nonlinearity is developed. The algebra of time-dependent Bose-operators is elaborated and the normal-ordering theorem for them is formulated. It is established that the spectral region where the quadrature fluctuations are weaker than the shot-noise, depends on both the relaxation time of the nonlinearity and the magnitude of the nonlinear phase shift. It is also shown that the frequency at which suppression of the fluctuation is greatest can be controlle…
Entanglement harvesting from the quantum field is a well-known fact that, in recent times, is being rigorously investigated further in flat and different curved backgrounds. The usually understood formulation studies the possibility of two uncorrelated Unruh-DeWitt detectors getting entangled over time due to the effects of quantum vacuum fluctuations. Our current work presents a thorough formulation to realize the entanglement harvesting from non-vacuum background fluctuations. In particular, we further consider single excitation field states and a pair of inertial detectors, respectively, in…
Quantum theory of self-phase and cross-phase modulation of ultrashort light pulses in the Kerr medium is developed with taking into account the response time of an electronic nonlinearity. The correspondent algebra of time-dependent Bose-operators is elaborated. It is established that the spectral region of the pulse, where the quadrature fluctuations level is lower than the shot-noise one, depends on the value of the nonlinear phase shift, the intensity of another pulse, and the relaxation time of the nonlinearity. It is shown that the frequency of the pulse spectrum at which the suppression …
We study the effect of quantum memory in non-inertial frames under the influence of amplitude damping, depolarizing, phase flip and bit-phase flip channels. It is shown that the entanglement of initial state is heavily influenced by quantum correlations. It is seen that quantum memory compensates the loss of entanglement generated caused by the Unruh effect. It is interesting to note that the sudden death of entanglement disappears for any acceleration for higher values of memory. Therefore, it is possible to avoid ESD in non-inertial frames due to the presence of quantum memory. Furthermore, …
We investigate the interaction between a moving detector and a quantum field, especially about how the trajectory of the detector would affect the vacuum fluctuations when the detector is moves in a quantum field (the Unruh effect). We focus on two moving detectors system for future application in quantum teleportation. We find that the rajectory of a uniformly accelerated detector in Rindler space cannot be extended to a trajectory in which a detector moves at constant velocity. Based on our previous work, we redo the calculations and find that a term is missing from the past calculations, an…
We show that in complete agreement with classical mechanics, the dynamics of any quantum mechanical wave packet in a linear gravitational potential involves the gravitational and the inertial mass only as their ratio. In contrast, the spatial modulation of the corresponding energy wave function is determined by the third root of the product of the two masses. Moreover, the discrete energy spectrum of a particle constrained in its motion by a linear gravitational potential and an infinitely steep wall depends on the inertial as well as the gravitational mass with different fractional powers. Th…
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…
The existence of Davies-Unruh temperature in a uniformly accelerated frame shows that quantum fluctuations of the inertial vacuum state appears as thermal fluctuations in the accelerated frame. Hence thermodynamic experiments cannot distinguish between phenomena occurring in a thermal bath of temperature T in the inertial frame from those in a frame accelerating through inertial vacuum with the acceleration $a=2πT$. We show that this indisguishability between quantum fluctuations and thermal fluctuations goes far beyond the fluctuations in the vacuum state. We show by an exact calculation, tha…
Previous research on quantum annealing methods focused on effectively modeling systems of linear equations by utilizing quadratic unconstrained binary optimization (QUBO) formulations. These studies take part in enhancing quantum computing algorithms, which extract properties of quantum computers suitable for improving classical computational models. In this paper, we further develop the QUBO formulations of systems of linear equations by applying Sylvester's law of inertia, which explores matrix congruence of any real symmetric matrix to a diagonal matrix. We expect that the proposed algorith…
We determine the quantum mechanical limits to inertial mass-sensing based on nanomechanical systems. We first consider a harmonically oscillating cantilever whose vibration frequency is changed by mass accretion at its surface. We show that its zero-point fluctuations limit the mass sensitivity, for attainable parameters, to about an electron mass. In contrast to the case of a classical cantilever, we find the mass sensitivity of the quantum mechanical cantilever is independent of its resonant frequency in a certain parameter regime at low temperatures. We then consider an optomechanical setup…
A mirror in vacuum is coupled to fluctuating quantum fields. As a result, its energy-momentum and mass fluctuate. We compute the correlation spectra of force and mass fluctuations for a mirror at rest in vacuum (of a scalar field in a two-dimensional space-time). The obtained expressions agree with a mass correction equal to a vacuum energy stored by the mirror. We introduce a Lagrangian model which consistently describes a scalar field coupled to a scatterer, with inertial mass being a quantum variable.
We apply the DDC formalism [proposed by Dalibard, Dupont-Roc and Cohen-Tannoudji] to study the average rate of change of energy of two identical two-level atoms interacting with the vacuum massless scalar field in synchronized motion along stationary trajectories. By separating the contributions of vacuum fluctuations and atomic radiation reaction, we first show that for the two-atom system initially prepared in the factorizable eigenstates $|g_Ag_B\rangle$ and $|e_Ae_B\rangle$, where $g$ and $e$ represent the ground state and the excited state of a single atom respectively, both vacuum fluctu…
A simple, general discussion of the problem of inertia is provided both in classical physics and in the quantum world. After briefly reviewing the classical principles of equivalence (weak (WEP), Einstein (EEP), strong (SEP)), I pass to a presentation of several equivalence statements in nonrelativistic quantum mechanics and for quantum field vacuum states. It is suggested that a reasonable type of preferred quantum field vacua may be considered: those possessing stationary spectra of their vacuum fluctuations with respect to accelerated classical trajectories
There are two types of fluctuations in the quantum vacuum: type 1 vacuum fluctuations are on shell and can interact with matter in specific, limited ways that have observable consequences; type 2 vacuum fluctuations are off shell and cannot interact with matter. A photon will polarize a type 1, bound, charged lepton-antilepton vacuum fluctuation in much the same manner that it would polarize a dielectric, suggesting the method used here for calculating the permittivity $ε_0$ of the vacuum. In a model that retains only leading terms, $ε_0 \cong (6μ_0/π)(8e^2/\hbar)^2= 9.10\times 10^{-12}$ C/(Vm…
Single quantum system, such as Unruh-DeWitt detector, can be used to determine absolute acceleration by local measurements on a quantum field. To show this, we consider two kinematically indistinguishable scenarios: an inertial observer, Bob, measuring the field of an uniformly accelerated cavity, and his non-inertial twin Rob accelerating and making measurements in a stationary cavity. We find that these scenarios can be distinguished in the non-relativistic regime only by measurements on highly excited massive fields, allowing one to detect non-inertialness of the reference frame.
An atom attached to a micrometer-scale wire that is vibrating at a frequency of 100 MHz and with displacement amplitude 1 nm experiences an acceleration magnitude 10^9 ms^-2, approaching the surface gravity of a neutron star. As one application of such extreme non-inertial forces in a mesoscopic setting, we consider a model two-path atom interferometer with one path consisting of the 100 MHz vibrating wire atom guide. The vibrating wire guide serves as a non-inertial reference frame and induces an in principle measurable phase shift in the wave function of an atom traversing the wire frame. We…
We investigate radiative processes of inertial two-level atoms in an entangled state interacting with a quantum electromagnetic field. Our intention is to clarify and to analyze the contributions of vacuum fluctuations and radiation reaction to the decay rate of the entangled state. The possible relevance of the findings in the present work is discussed.
Recently relativistic quantum information has received considerable attention due to its theoretical importance and practical application. Especially, quantum entanglement in non-inertial reference frames has been studied for scalar and Dirac fields. As a further step along this line, we here shall investigate quantum entanglement of electromagnetic fields in non-inertial reference frames. In particular, the entanglement of photon helicity entangled state is extensively analyzed. Interestingly, the resultant logarithmic negativity and mutual information remain the same as those for inertial re…
We develop a general technique to analyse the quantum effects of acceleration on realistic spatially-localised electromagnetic field states entangled in the polarization degree of freedom. We show that for this setting, quantum entanglement may build up as the acceleration increases, providing a clear signature of the quantum effects of relativistic acceleration.
Quantum channel discrimination is used to test quantum field theory in non-inertial frames. We search for optimal strategies which can best see the thermality of the Unruh effect. We find that the usual strategy of counting particles in the vacuum can be improved, thereby enhancing the discrimination. Coherent state probes, which are practical and feasible, give exponential improvement in the discrimination of the Unruh channel and come very close to optimal. In particular, we show that using a short pulse laser, the accelerations required to test the Unruh effect can be reduced by at least th…
We present a formalism of Galilean quantum mechanics in non-inertial reference frames and discuss its implications for the equivalence principle. This extension of quantum mechanics rests on the Galilean line group, the semidirect product of the real line and the group of analytic functions from the real line to the Euclidean group in three dimensions. This group provides transformations between all inertial and non-inertial reference frames and contains the Galilei group as a subgroup. We construct a certain class of unitary representations of the Galilean line group and show that these repre…
It was recently suggested that quantum field theory is not fundamental but emerges from the loss of phase space information about matter crossing causal horizons. Possible connections between this formalism and Verlinde's entropic gravity and Jacobson's thermodynamic gravity are proposed. The holographic screen in Verlinde's formalism can be identified as local Rindler horizons and its entropy as that of the bulk fields beyond the horizons. This naturally resolves some issues on entropic gravity. The quantum fluctuation of the fields is the origin of the thermodynamic nature of entropic gravit…
A relativistic theory of gravity like general relativity produces phenomena differing fundamentally from Newton's theory. An example, analogous to electromagnetic induction, is gravitomagnetism, or the dragging of inertial frames by mass-energy currents. These effects have recently been confirmed by classical observations. Here we show, for the first time, that they can be observed by a quantum detector. We study the response function of Unruh De-Witt detectors placed in a slowly rotating shell. We show that the response function picks up the presence of rotation even though the spacetime insi…
It is argued that the classical local inertial frame used to define rotational states of quantum systems is only approximate, and that geometry itself must also be rotationally quantized at the Planck scale. A Lorentz invariant statistical model of correlations in quantum geometry on larger scales predicts spacelike correlations that describe rotational fluctuations in the inertial frame. Fluctuations are estimated to significantly affect the gravity of quantum field states on a macroscopic scale, characterized by the Chandrasekhar radius. It is suggested that the cosmological constant might b…
