The Role of Gravity in the Wave Function of Macroscopic Systems

F. Károlyházy, A. Frenkel, B. Lukács

Vitaly Kuyukov

Gravity and the world wave function

Philip R. Wallace

Katsuhiro Nakamura, Naofumi Nakazono, Taro Ando

Using the nonlinear Schroedinger equation (Gross-Pitaevskii equation), the dynamics of a macroscopic wave packet for Bose-Einstein condensates falling through double slits is analyzed. This problem is identified with a search for the fate of a soliton showing a head-on collision with a hard-walled obstacle of finite size. We explore the splitting of the wave packet and its reorganization to form an interference pattern. Particular attention is paid to the role of gravity (g) and repulsive nonlinearity (u_0) in the fringe pattern. The peak-to-peak distance in the fringe pattern and the number of interference peaks are found to be proportional to g^(-1/2) and u_0^(1/2)g^(1/4), respectively. We suggest a way of designing an experiment under controlled gravity and nonlinearity.

Lajos Diósi

We give a twist to the assumption – discussed in various earlier works – that gravity plays a role in the collapse of the wave function. This time we discuss the contrary assumption that the collapse of the wave function plays a role in the emergence of the gravitational field. We start from the mathematical framework of a particular Newtonian gravitational collapse theory proposed by the author longtime ago, and we reconciliate it with the classical equivalence principle.

Lajos Diósi