The purpose of this study is to calculate the entanglement measure for a bipartite system where the two subsystems interact via a central potential, and more importantly, to analyze the conceptual implication in the case of gravitational potential. Through numerical calculation, we confirm that the ground state of such quantum system is an entangled state. This raises a question whether a quantum ground state describing masses interacting through gravity can ever be a separable state. Entanglement seems to be an intrinsic characteristic for the ground state when mutual gravitational interaction is involved. Although the study is in the context of non-relativistic quantum mechanics, it provides hints for a quantum gravity theory in the limit of very weak field and low relative velocity. The entanglement of the ground state of two masses seems intrinsically connecting to the curvature of spacetime they create.
The purpose of this study is to calculate the entanglement measure for a bipartite system where the two subsystems interact via a central potential, and more importantly, to analyze the conceptual implication in the case of gravitational potential. Through numerical calculation, we confirm that the ground state of such quantum system is an entangled state. This raises a question whether a quantum ground state describing masses interacting through gravity can ever be a separable state. Entanglement seems to be an intrinsic characteristic for the ground state when mutual gravitational interaction is involved. Although the study is in the context of non-relativistic quantum mechanics, it provides hints for a quantum gravity theory in the limit of very weak field and low relative velocity. The entanglement of the ground state of two masses seems intrinsically connecting to the curvature of spacetime they create.
We describe a complete method for a precise study of gravitational interaction between two nearby quantum masses. Since the displacements of these masses are much smaller than the initial separation between their centers, the displacement-to-separation ratio is a natural parameter in which the gravitational potential can be expanded. We show that entanglement in such experiments is sensitive to initial relative momentum only when the system evolves into non-Gaussian states, i.e., when the potential is expanded at least up to the cubic term. A pivotal role of force gradient as the dominant contributor to position-momentum correlations is demonstrated. We establish a closed-form expression for the entanglement gain, which shows that the contribution from the cubic term is proportional to momentum and from the quartic term is proportional to momentum squared. From a quantum information perspective, the results find applications as a momentum witness of non-Gaussian entanglement. Our methods are versatile and apply to any number of central interactions expanded to any order.
In recent years, the quantum nature of gravity has attracted significant attention as one of the most important problems in modern physics. Here, we analyze the mechanism of gravitationally-induced entanglement from the perspective of quantum resource theory. Building on the framework of Bose et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 119, 240401 (2017)], we show that the gravitational interaction acts as a unitary channel, redistributing quantum resources between two spatially superposed masses. Specifically, we demonstrate that the resulting bipartite entanglement originates from the coherent conversion of local quantum coherence -- initially present in each subsystem -- into shared non-local correlations. We derive exact, analytical complementarity relations quantifying this conversion, link the decay of local coherence directly to the growth of entanglement, and support these findings with numerical simulations. Our results clarify the underlying mechanism and establish gravity as a coherence-to-entanglement conversion channel, offering a refined interpretive basis for forthcoming experimental tests. Crucially, we show that initial coherence is a necessary condition for entanglement generation and that its degree bounds the maximum achievable entanglement, with maximal entanglement requiring initial maximal coherence.
We investigate gravitationally generated entanglement in two quantum harmonic oscillators induced by quadratic (Stelle) gravity, including corrections up to 1.5 post-Newtonian order. Starting from the quadratic action, we derive the effective two-body Hamiltonian for two harmonically trapped masses, incorporating the contributions of the massive spin-2 ghost (m2) and massive spin-0 (m0) degrees of freedom of the gravitational field. For two quantised oscillators prepared in their ground state, we compute the von Neumann and Rényi entropies of the reduced state and identify a frequency at which the gravitationally-induced entanglement vanishes due to cancellation between relativistic momentum squeezing and quantum-delocalisation-induced position squeezing. We further analyze the cancellation frequency and derive the approximate constraint m0<34m2 for the spin-2 and spin-0 modes. This relation follows from demanding a stable harmonic oscillator description. Finally, we study gravitationally-induced concurrence in a non-Gaussian setup and show how quadratic gravity modifies the entanglement generated between two spatial superpositions. The concurrence can approach O(1) for certain choices of mass, spatial superposition, particle distance, and spin-2 and spin-0 modes. The concurrence will deviate from Newtonian gravity at certain particle separations, depending on the energy of the spin-2 and spin-0 modes. For example, spin modes as low as 0.0197 eV become distinguishable from Newtonian gravity at a distance d∼40μm. This allows us to constrain the spin-2 and spin-0 masses in experiments.
We develop a quantum field-theoretic model of gravitationally induced entanglement (GIE) between two massive objects in spatial superposition. The masses are described as excitations of a scalar field in an external harmonic potential, allowing for a well-defined notion of relativistic coherent states. Using linearized quantum gravity in the static limit, we derive an effective Hamiltonian that induces entanglement between the field modes occupied by the masses. To probe this entanglement, we construct an observable from field operators that corresponds to the probability density of detecting the center of mass of one of these massive objects. Using this, we compute the fringe visibility in the overlap region and find that gravitationally induced entanglement leads to a decrease in visibility, consistent with previous nonrelativistic results. Additionally, we identify relativistic corrections that accelerate the decay of fringe visibility. These results provide a framework for studying weakly relativistic quantum field systems and their gravitational interactions in tabletop experiments.
Abstract Recently, it was shown that if two distant test masses, each in a spatially superposed quantum state, become entangled due to their mutual gravitational interaction, then this entanglement could serve as evidence of the quantum nature of gravity. We extend this treatment to a many-body system in a general setup and study the entanglement properties of the time-evolved state. We exactly compute the time-dependent I-concurrence for every bipartition and obtain the necessary and sufficient condition for the creation of genuine many-body entanglement. We further show that this entanglement is of generalised GHZ type when certain conditions are met. We also evaluate the amount of multipartite entanglement in the system using a set of generalised Meyer-Wallach measures.