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arXiv:2207.14371 · Physical Review Letters

Generation of Entanglement from Mechanical Rotation

Marko Toroš, Marion Cromb, Mauro Paternostro, Daniele Faccio

Published Dec 21, 2022• 24 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Many phenomena and fundamental predictions, ranging from Hawking radiation to the early evolution of the Universe rely on the interplay between quantum mechanics and gravity or more generally, quantum mechanics in curved spacetimes. However, our understanding is hindered by the lack of experiments that actually allow us to probe quantum mechanics in curved spacetime in a repeatable and accessible way. Here we propose an experimental scheme for a photon that is prepared in a path superposition state across two rotating Sagnac interferometers that have different diameters and thus represent a superposition of two different spacetimes. We predict the generation of genuine entanglement even at low rotation frequencies and show how these effects could be observed even due to the Earth's rotation. These predictions provide an accessible platform in which to study the role of the underlying spacetime in the generation of entanglement.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.129.260401

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We review recent experimental and theoretical results of photon interferometry on rotating platforms. Quantum phenomena such as two-photon interference and entanglement can be controlled with mechanical rotations in a regime accessible to table-top experiments. We first discuss experiments demonstrating how low-frequency mechanical rotations affect the bunching behavior of frequency-entangled photon pairs. It was shown that low-frequency mechanical rotations can affect the temporal distinguishability of photons and can transform photonic behavior from perfectly indistinguishable (bosonic behavior) to perfectly distinguishable (fermionic behavior). We then give a future outlook for testing the generation of entanglement from mechanical rotation. A recent theoretical work showed that generating path-polarization entanglement from mechanical rotations could be verified with present technology. These works make a strong case for further exploration of quantum phenomena at the interface with non-inertial (rotational) motion.
Quantum mechanics and general relativity have been extensively and independently confirmed in many experiments. However, the interplay of the two theories has never been tested: all experiments that measured the influence of gravity on quantum systems are consistent with non-relativistic, Newtonian gravity. On the other hand, all tests of general relativity can be described within the framework of classical physics. Here we discuss a quantum interference experiment with single photons that can probe quantum mechanics in curved space-time. We consider a single photon traveling in superposition along two paths in an interferometer, with each arm experiencing a different gravitational time dilation. If the difference in the time dilations is comparable with the photon's coherence time, the visibility of the quantum interference is predicted to drop, while for shorter time dilations the effect of gravity will result only in a relative phase shift between the two arms. We discuss what aspects of the interplay between quantum mechanics and general relativity are probed in such experiments and analyze the experimental feasibility.
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