Probing the Schroedinger-Newton equation in a Stern-Gerlach interferometer

Explaining the behavior of macroscopic objects from the point of view of the quantum paradigm has challenged the scientific community for a century today. A mechanism of gravitational self-interaction, governed by the so-called Schroedinger-Newton equation, is among the proposals that aim to shed so...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:arXiv.org 2024-03
Main Authors: Aguiar, Gabriel H S, Matsas, George E A
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Quantum mechanics
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Explaining the behavior of macroscopic objects from the point of view of the quantum paradigm has challenged the scientific community for a century today. A mechanism of gravitational self-interaction, governed by the so-called Schroedinger-Newton equation, is among the proposals that aim to shed some light on it. Despite all efforts, this mechanism has been proven difficult to probe. Here, we consider a simple Stern-Gerlach-like experiment to try it out. The Schroedinger-Newton equation can be analytically solved under certain proper conditions, and a dephasing effect induced by the gravitational self-interacting potential can be calculated.
ISSN:2331-8422
DOI:10.48550/arxiv.2310.18072