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Europhysics Letters (EPL)

Entangled states and the gravitational quantum well

Rui Alves, Orfeu Bertolami A, Catarina Bastos

Published Oct 29, 2018• 3 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We study the continuous variable entanglement of a system of two particles under the influence of the Earth's gravitational field. We determine a phase-space description of this bipartite system by calculating its Wigner function and verify its entanglement by applying a generalization of the PPT criterion for non-Gaussian states. We also examine the influence of gravity on entangled states at different potentials based on the correlation of states of the gravitational quantum well.

DOI
10.1209/0295-5075/124/10001

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We study the continuous variable entanglement of a system of two particles under the influence of the Earth's gravitational field. We determine a phase-space description of this bipartite system by calculating its Wigner function and verify its entanglement by applying a generalization of the PPT criterion for non-Gaussian states. We also examine the influence of gravity on entangled states at different potentials based on the correlation of states of the gravitational quantum well.
We study the continuous variable entanglement of a system of two particles under the influence of Earth's gravitational field. We determine a phase-space description of this bipartite system by calculating its Wigner function and verify its entanglement by applying a generalization of the PPT criterion for non-Gaussian states. We also examine the influence of gravity on an idealized entanglement protocol to be shared between stations at different potentials based on the correlation of states of the gravitational quantum well.
Due to the weakness of gravitational coupling, all quantum experiments up to date in which gravity plays a role utilized the field of the Earth. Since this field undergoes practically undetectable back-action from quantum particles, it effectively admits a classical description as a fixed background Newtonian field or spacetime. This argument strongly motivates theoretical and experimental research towards a demonstration of gravitation between two quantum masses, as this is one of the most straightforward scenarios where quantum features of gravity could be observed. Several proposals studied the possibility of generating entanglement between two massive objects. Along the same lines, with a particular focus on gravity, this thesis introduces general tools to tackle interaction-mediated entanglement and applies them to two particles prepared in continuous-variable states.
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.
Observation of gravitationally induced quantum entanglement is often interpreted as a direct evidence of non-classical gravity. While the form and the degree of non-classicality have been rigorously studied from a foundational perspective, classical models reproducing experimental signatures of such entanglement remain underexplored. Motivated by the experimental simplicity, nearly all existing optomechanical approaches assume Gaussian initial states, and due to the weakness of gravity the quantum Newtonian potential is truncated at the second order. However, this regime admits a classical description in terms of the Wigner-Weyl representation, including features typically associated with quantum entanglement. A clear distinction between classical and quantum predictions emerges only beyond this setting. We comprehensively analyze the possibilities and provide operational witnesses for detection of non-classicality via Wigner negativity, and detection of non-quantumness via negativity of the Weyl operator. Our results demonstrate that the experimental requirements on certifying gravitational entanglement are more stringent than previously anticipated.
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.
Abstract The influence of gravitational field on entanglement of bipartite states is investigated based on the recent idea of superposition states of gravitational field. Different from earlier considerations, we study the case where the gravitational field cannot be separated unitarily from the bipartite system in the final stage of the interaction. When the different gravitational field states are orthogonal, entanglement cannot be generated for an initial product state. If the different gravitational field states are non-orthogonal, entanglement can be generated and the amount of generated entanglement depends on an overlap parameter between different gravitational field states. The influence of gravitational field on the transfer of the state through quantum teleportation is also studied, which might lead to an observable effect since the quantum teleportation can be performed using macroscopic object.