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arXiv:2605.06577

Entanglement generation in a two-body Schrödinger--Newton model

Marcin Płodzień, Julia Osęka-Lenart, Maciej Lewenstein, Michał Eckstein

quant-phgr-qcSubmitted May 7, 2026• Announced May 8, 2026• 0 citations
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Abstract

The Schrödinger--Newton (SN) equation provides a semiclassical framework for the evolution of self-gravitating of massive quantum systems. We propose a two-body Schrödinger--Newton model that separates local nonlinear self-localization from the nonseparable Newtonian pair potential. Analytically, we show that the nonlinear self-field preserves the Schmidt spectrum, whereas direct entanglement generation arises from the nonseparable pair potential. Using numerical simulations in a regularized one-dimensional geometry, we find that entanglement generation depends sensitively on the initial spatial configuration and on the mass ratio. Highly localized, self-bound wavepackets experience minimal entanglement growth during scattering. Spatial delocalization and kinetic dispersion broaden the interaction region, amplifying the entangling power of the pair potential and exciting higher-order spatial modes. For dispersive Gaussian initial states, mass asymmetry shatters the lighter particle, producing Wigner negativity and rapid entanglement growth, whereas stationary SN profiles strongly suppress this effect. Stationary SN profiles isolate the bare pair-potential contribution; dispersive Gaussian initial states inflate it.

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The Schrödinger--Newton (SN) equation provides a semiclassical framework for the evolution of self-gravitating of massive quantum systems. We propose a two-body Schrödinger--Newton model that separates local nonlinear self-localization from the nonseparable Newtonian pair potential. Analytically, we show that the nonlinear self-field preserves the Schmidt spectrum, whereas direct entanglement generation arises from the nonseparable pair potential. Using numerical simulations in a regularized one-dimensional geometry, we find that entanglement generation depends sensitively on the initial spatial configuration and on the mass ratio. Highly localized, self-bound wavepackets experience minimal entanglement growth during scattering. Spatial delocalization and kinetic dispersion broaden the interaction region, amplifying the entangling power of the pair potential and exciting higher-order spatial modes. For dispersive Gaussian initial states, mass asymmetry shatters the lighter particle, producing Wigner negativity and rapid entanglement growth, whereas stationary SN profiles strongly suppress this effect. Stationary SN profiles isolate the bare pair-potential contribution; dispersive Gaussian initial states inflate it.
Abstract The Schrödinger–Newton (SN) model is a semi-classical theory in which, in addition to mutual attraction, massive quantum particles interact with their own gravitational fields. While there are many studies on the phenomenology of single particles, correlation dynamics in multipartite systems is largely unexplored. Here, we show that the SN interactions preserve the product form of the initial state of a many-body system, yet on average agreeing with classical mechanics of continuous mass distributions. This leads to a simple test of the model, based on verifying bipartite gravitational evolution towards non-product states. We show using standard quantum mechanics that, with currently accessible single-particle parameters, two masses released from harmonic traps get correlated well before any observable entanglement is accumulated. Therefore, the SN model can be tested with setups aimed at observation of gravitational entanglement with significantly relaxed requirements on coherence time. We also present a mixed-state extension of the model that avoids superluminal signaling.
Semiclassical gravity, in which a classical spacetime is sourced by the quantum expectation value of the stress-energy tensor, is a standard framework for describing the gravitational interaction of quantum matter. In the nonrelativistic limit this approach leads to the Schrödinger-Newton equation, which is often assumed to be consistent at least in the weak-field regime. In this work, we reexamine this assumption for spatial quantum superpositions of massive particles. We show that, when the quantum state is properly normalized, no modification of the Newtonian gravitational potential arises at leading order. However, at first post-Newtonian order the semiclassical coupling generically produces state-dependent contributions involving the mass density and the mass current of the superposition. These terms have a parametric scaling which is different from that of the corresponding relativistic corrections and which does not have Planck mass suppression. Our results therefore impose a strong post-Newtonian consistency constraint on deterministic semiclassical gravity, indicating that sourcing the metric solely by expectation values is insufficient to recover a consistent relativistic weak-field expansion.
Abstract We probe the dynamics of a modified form of the Schrödinger–Newton (SN) system of gravity coupled to single particle quantum mechanics. At the masses of interest here, the ones associated with the onset of ‘collapse’ (where the gravitational attraction is competitive with the quantum mechanical dissipation), we show that the Schrödinger ground state energies match the Dirac ones with an error of . At the Planck mass scale, we predict the critical mass at which a potential collapse could occur for the self-coupled gravitational case, Planck mass, and show that gravitational attraction opposes Gaussian spreading at around this value, which is a factor of two higher than the one predicted (and verified) for the SN system. Unlike the SN dynamics, we do not find that the self-coupled case tends to decay towards its ground state; there is no collapse in this case.
The Schr\"odinger-Newton model describes self-gravitating quantum particles, and it is often cited to explain the gravitational collapse of the wave function and the localization of macroscopic objects. However, this model is completely nonrelativistic. Thus, in order to study whether the relativistic effects may spoil the properties of this system, we derive a modification of the Schr\"odinger-Newton equation by considering certain relativistic corrections up to the first post-Newtonian order. The construction of the model begins by considering the Hamiltonian of a relativistic particle propagating on a curved background. For simplicity, the background metric is assumed to be spherically symmetric, and it is then expanded up to the first post-Newtonian order. After performing the canonical quantization of the system, and following the usual interpretation, the square of the module of the wave function defines a mass distribution, which in turn is the source of the Poisson equation for the gravitational potential. As in the nonrelativistic case, this construction couples the Poisson and the Schr\"odinger equations and leads to a complicated nonlinear system. Hence, the dynamics of an initial Gaussian wave packet is then numerically analyzed. We observe that the natural dispersion of the wave function is slower than in the nonrelativistic case. Furthermore, for those cases that reach a final localized stationary state, the peak of the wave function happens to be located at a smaller radius. Therefore, the relativistic corrections effectively contribute to increase the self-gravitation of the particle and strengthen the validity of this model as an explanation for the gravitational localization of the wave function.
We reconsider the time-dependent Schrödinger–Newton equation as a model for the self-gravitational interaction of a quantum system. We numerically locate the onset of gravitationally induced inhibitions of dispersion of Gaussian wave packets and find them to occur at mass values more than six orders of magnitude higher than reported by Salzman and Carlip (Salzman and Carlip 2006, arXiv:gr-qc/0606120, Carlip 2008 Class. Quantum Grav. 25 107–44), namely at about 10 10 u. This fits much better to simple analytical estimates but unfortunately also questions the experimental realizability of the proposed laboratory test of quantum gravity in the foreseeable future, not just because of large masses, but also because of the need to provide sufficiently long coherence times.
We investigate dynamical relaxation to the Born rule in a semiclassical gravity model described by the Schrödinger-Newton equations. Using a Gaussian variational solution for the self-gravitating wave packet, combined with Nelson's stochastic representation of quantum dynamics, we track the evolution of particle ensembles whose initial probability distribution differs from ∣Ψ∣2|Ψ|^2∣Ψ∣2. Relaxation to the Born rule ("quantum equilibrium") occurs when the wave packet remains bounded, or grows sufficiently slowly in time; in contrast, for rapidly expanding solutions of the Schrödinger-Newton equations, deviations from the Born rule can persist indefinitely. Numerical simulations confirm this analytical picture. These results show that semiclassical self-gravity can either enable or inhibit relaxation towards the Born rule, providing a minimal model relevant to proposals of primordial quantum non-equilibrium, as suggested by Underwood and Valentini [Phys. Rev. D 92, 063531 (2015)].