Recent advances in the theory of quantum gravity show that the Ricci flow serves as the time evolution operator for the vacuum energy density and that in the presence of baryonic matter, the Ricci flow is analogous to the heat equation in the presence of a heat sink. Here we show using the equations of quantum gravity, that quantum information can be modelled as a thermal fluid consisting of a superposition of weakly excited eigenstates of a quantum field and that each eigenstate vector has an associated eigenstate potential well. The depth of the potential well depends on the amplitude of the eigenstate vector. Measurement is then considered as a selection by tuning process which only allows an eigenstate resonating with the detector to be detected. During the detection process, the resonating eigenstate vector increases in amplitude, deepening its potential well such that the other weakly excited states rapidly drain their small excitation energies into it via the principle of minimum action. This draining process is the act of collapsing the wave function to a specific state. Also, the presence of the eigenstate potential wells is what cancels out the infinities from high energy interactions.
Recent advances in the theory of quantum gravity show that the Ricci flow serves as the time evolution operator for the vacuum energy density and that in the presence of baryonic matter, the Ricci flow is analogous to the heat equation in the presence of a heat sink. Here we show using the equations of quantum gravity, that quantum information can be modelled as a thermal fluid consisting of a superposition of weakly excited eigenstates of a quantum field and that each eigenstate vector has an associated eigenstate potential well. The depth of the potential well depends on the amplitude of the eigenstate vector. Measurement is then considered as a selection by tuning process which only allows an eigenstate resonating with the detector to be detected. During the detection process, the resonating eigenstate vector increases in amplitude, deepening its potential well such that the other weakly excited states rapidly drain their small excitation energies into it via the principle of minimum action. This draining process is the act of collapsing the wave function to a specific state. Also, the presence of the eigenstate potential wells is what cancels out the infinities from high energy interactions.
A consistent theory including gravitational effects in quantum mechanics has not been found. Although many different approaches have been proposed for theory of quantum gravity, several authors have suggested that gravity may be fundamentally classical. As there is no experimental evidence for a fundamentally quantum vs. fundamentally classical theory of gravity, it is hoped that investigating the consequences of semiclassical gravity, one may propose an experiment to distinguish between the quantum or classical nature of gravity. As opto- and electromechanical devices allow quantum limited measurement and control over massive, mechanical degrees of freedom, they are ideal systems to test violations of standard quantum mechanics arising from gravitational effects. After a brief introduction to the background theory and literature review, we begin by introducing a semiclassical model of gravity based on quantum measurement and control. We show under which conditions the theory behaves like a collapse model, and how a Newtonian potential is recovered in the multi particle case.We then go on to analyse our semiclassical model in two scenarios: firstly in a cosmological setting, and secondly by considering quantum clocks on the surface of the earth. In the cosmological description, we show that a violation of energy conservation, resulting from our model, can be reinterpreted as a dark energy fluid in the spacetime, suggesting that perhaps local violations of conservations of energy may be resolved in a cosmological framework. Secondly, we derive a minimum, gravitational dephasing rate for quantum clocks under the semiclassical model, which unsurprisingly, is is well below the resolution of current state of the art clocks. The next chapters diverge from analysing the gravitational model, and instead focus on novel methods of manipulating and measuring micromechanical devices, that may be used to experimentally probe the results of the semi-classical theory. Firstly we show that a sequence of coherently controlled pulses in an optomechanical system can be used to directly probe the momentum of an oscillator - opening up the possibility for direct detection of momentum diffusion, which is a consequence of the semiclassical gravity model. Secondly, we introduce an electro-mechanical device, and sequence of control operations, that may be understood as an interferometer for the wave function of a mechanical oscillator coupled to a qubit. We show how the resulting interference pattern can distinguish between unitary evolution, thermalisation/decoherence, and a purely classical description of the mechanical oscillator. We also show how the qubit-oscillator interaction can be used generate arbitrary wave functions of the mechanical oscillator, using only classical qubit driving.
In hybrid classical-quantum theories, the dynamics of the classical system induce the classicality of the quantum system, meaning that such models do not necessarily require a measurement postulate to describe probabilistic measurement outcomes. It has recently been shown that covariant classical-quantum dynamics can be constructed using path integral methods, with the dynamics encoded in a combined action for the classical and quantum variables. This work introduces a classical-quantum model whereby quantum gravity interacts with a classical scalar field. The scalar field can be viewed as fundamentally classical or effectively classical due to the decoherence of a quantum gravity theory. The dynamics act to collapse quantum spacetimes according to their Ricci scalar, with corresponding diffusion in the scalar field due to the quantum back-reaction. In the classical limit, the diffusion in the scalar field manifests itself via stochastic fluctuations in the Newtonian potential. Because we couple a classical scalar field to perturbative quantum gravity, we find the theory is not renormalizable but is instead to be viewed as an effective field theory. However, it is an effective field theory that does not necessarily require a measurement postulate. More generally, our work shows it is possible to integrate collapse dynamics with high-energy physics and covariance.
A new quantum gravity experiment is reported with the data confirming the generali-sation of the Schrödinger equation to include the interaction of the wave function with dynamical space. Dynamical space turbulence, via this interaction process, raises and lowers the energy of the electron wave function, which is detected by observing conse-quent variations in the electron quantum barrier tunnelling rate in reverse-biased Zener diodes. This process has previously been reported and enabled the measurement of the speed of the dynamical space flow, which is consistent with numerous other detection experiments. The interaction process is dependent on the angle between the dynamical space flow velocity and the direction of the electron flow in the diode, and this depen-dence is experimentally demonstrated. This interaction process explains gravity as an emergent quantum process, so unifying quantum phenomena and gravity. Gravitational waves are easily detected. 1
The paper investigates the non-local property of quantum mechanics in the quantum hydrodynamic analogy (QHA) given by Madelung. The role of the quantum potential in generating the non-local dynamics of quantum mechanics is analyzed. The work shows how in presence of noise the non-local properties as well as the quantization of the action are perturbed. The resulting stochastic QHA dynamics much depend by the strength of the interaction: Strongly bounded systems (such as linear ones) lead to quantum entangled stochastic behavior, while weakly bounded ones may be not able to maintain the quantum superposition of states on large distances and may loose their macro-scale quantum coherence acquiring the classical stochastic evolution . The work shows that in the frame of the stochastic approach it is possible to have freedom between quantum weakly bounded systems. The stochastic QHA model shows that the wave-function collapse to an eigenstates (deriving by interaction of a quantum microscopic system with a classical (macroscopic) one) can be described by the model itself as a kinetic quantum (relaxation) process to a stationary state. Since the time of the wave function decay to the eigenstate represents the minimum duration time of a measurement, the minimum uncertainty principle is shown to be compatible with the relativistic postulate about the light speed as the maximum velocity of transmission of interaction. About this topic, the paper shows that the Lorenz invariance of the relativistic quantum potential (coming from the Dirac equation) enforces the hypothesis that the superluminal transmission of information are not present in measurements on quantum entangled state.
Measurements play a crucial role in quantum mechanics because they serve two fundamental purposes. First, they enable the extraction of information about a quantum system; second, they give rise to new physical effects that do not appear in classical physics, one important example being the measurement-induced state update, where the act of measurement alters the system’s state. For these reasons, the mathematical description of measurements plays a primary role in the foundational postulates of the theory. However, the essence of what happens during a measurement remains poorly understood, even within the relatively easy realm of non-relativistic quantum theory. The situation becomes even less transparent in the relativistic setting, where the requirement to preserve causality and prevent faster-than-light signalling introduces both formal and interpretational challenges, complicating the very mathematical formulation of a measurement theory. As for quantum gravity, the idea of applying quantum measurements within or onto a quantum spacetime remains virtually unexplored, presenting a vast and uncharted frontier for theoretical inquiry. Building on recent advances across several areas at the intersection of quantum foundations, quantum information theory, relativistic quantum theory, and quantum gravity, the last few years saw a surge of interest in formulating a consistent framework for describing local measurements in a relativistic context. The main results of this endeavour are two distinct proposals for a relativistic measurement postulate for quantum field theory in generic spacetimes. While these two proposals are still being understood, and a growing research community is working to clarify their implications and potential interconnections, the field of relativistic quantum measurements has now reached a level of maturity that allows us to ask both formal and interpretive questions on a solid footing. All this only applies to the regime in which quantum field theory in curved spacetime remains valid: nothing can yet be said about measurements at the Planck energy, where quantum gravitational effects are expected to become important. This thesis presents an introduction to the theory of measurements in non-relativistic and relativistic quantum mechanics, along with four original research articles that explore aspects of measurements in both fields, as well as the potential extension of measurement theory to the domain of quantum gravity. The first article examines the limitations of realistic measurement apparatuses in non-relativistic quantum theory, establishing reasonable bounds for the precision that can be achieved with a given apparatus composed of many quantum components. The second article explores how to extract information from a newly introduced class of quantum systems, defined as those that cannot be replicated and thus fall outside the usual scope of quantum mechanics. Then, it applies the methodology to quantum field theory, demonstrating that classical results, such as the Unruh effect, can still be observed in this setting. The third article discusses detector-based measurements in quantum field theory. This is a recently proposed method that extends the non-relativistic measurement postulate to the relativistic regime by means of Unruh-de Witt detectors. The article highlights some conceptual and mathematical issues with the framework and proposes a solution using algebraic quantum field theory. The outcome is a self-consistent scheme for introducing local measurements in quantum field theory via measuring detectors. Finally, the fourth article uses the measurement scheme above to study how what we learned in the past years about local measurements can be extended to quantum gravity. This is achieved through the holographic principle realised in terms of the AdS-CFT correspondence. In conclusion, this thesis contributes to the development of both non-relativistic and relativistic measurement theories and introduces ideas and questions related to the role of measurement in quantum gravity. Though preliminary, this work opens a pathway toward studying measuring observers in quantum gravity.
It has been argued that, underlying any given quantum-mechanical model, there exists at least one deterministic system that reproduces, after prequantization, the given quantum dynamics. For a quantum mechanics with a complex d-dimensional Hilbert space, the Lie group SU(d) represents classical canonical transformations on the projective space ℂℙd-1 of quantum states. Let R stand for the Ricci flow of the manifold SU(d-1) down to one point, and let P denote the projection from the Hopf bundle onto its base ℂℙd-1. Then the underlying deterministic model we propose here is the Lie group SU(d), acted on by the operation PR. Finally we comment on some possible consequences that our model may have on a quantum theory of gravity.