Abstract We study the implications of the generalized uncertainty principle (GUP) with a minimal measurable length on some quantum mechanical interferometry phenomena, such as the Aharonov–Bohm, Aharonov–Casher, COW and Sagnac effects. By resorting to a modified Schrödinger equation, we evaluate the lowest-order correction to the phase shift of the interference pattern within two different GUP frameworks: the first one is characterized by the redefinition of the physical momentum only, and the other is a Lorentz covariant GUP which also predicts non-commutativity of spacetime. The obtained results allow us to fix upper bounds on the GUP deformation parameters which may be tested through future high-precision interferometry experiments.
Abstract We study the implications of the generalized uncertainty principle (GUP) with a minimal measurable length on some quantum mechanical interferometry phenomena, such as the Aharonov–Bohm, Aharonov–Casher, COW and Sagnac effects. By resorting to a modified Schrödinger equation, we evaluate the lowest-order correction to the phase shift of the interference pattern within two different GUP frameworks: the first one is characterized by the redefinition of the physical momentum only, and the other is a Lorentz covariant GUP which also predicts non-commutativity of spacetime. The obtained results allow us to fix upper bounds on the GUP deformation parameters which may be tested through future high-precision interferometry experiments.
Modifying the fundamental commutation relation of quantum mechanics to reflect the influence of gravity is an important approach to reconcile the contradiction between quantum field theory and general relativity. In the past two decades, researchers have conducted extensive research on geometric phase problems in non-commutative spaces, but few have mentioned the correction of geometric phase problems using the Generalized Uncertainty Principle (GUP). This paper is the first to study the phase correction of Aharonov-Bohm (AB) effect by GUP.
Several theories of quantum gravity propose the existence of a minimal measurable length and maximum measurable momentum near the Planck scale. When integrated into the framework of quantum mechanics, such restrictions lead to the generalization of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, which is commonly referred to as the generalized uncertainty principle (GUP). The GUP has been applied to a plethora of physical models in order to provide further insights on our understanding of the Universe, both in the macroscopic and the microscopic regime. Nevertheless, the corrections related to GUP are expected to be extremely small, which thus renders experimental verification a difficult task. Therefore, phenomenological approaches on a qualitative level are typically addressed with the aim of enhancing our possibility of detecting these tiny effects. Motivated by a recent work on a universal decoherence mechanism stemming from the standard formulation of GUP, we extend the ideas contained therein by considering a more general form of GUP which includes linear and quadratic momentum terms to examine its implications. To achieve such a picture, we equip the deformation parameter appearing in front of all momentum terms with a stochastic nature, so that the effective decoherence mechanism emerges by taking the average over fluctuations. We find that, despite the apparently small differences among the two generalizations of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, the consequences at the level of the universal decoherence mechanism they entail is significant, as they predict decoherence times that are completely uncorrelated and distinct.
We discuss classical electrodynamics and the Aharonov–Bohm effect in the presence of the minimal length. In the former, we derive the classical equation of motion and the corresponding Lagrangian. In the latter, we adopt the generalized uncertainty principle (GUP) and compute the scattering cross-section up to the first-order of the GUP parameter [Formula: see text]. Even though the minimal length exists, the cross-section is invariant under the simultaneous change [Formula: see text], [Formula: see text], where [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text] are azimuthal angle and magnetic flux parameter. However, unlike the usual Aharonv–Bohm scattering, the cross-section exhibits discontinuous behavior at every integer [Formula: see text]. The symmetries, which the cross-section has in the absence of GUP, are shown to be explicitly broken at the level of [Formula: see text].
This work establishes a link between deformed angular momentum operators and modifications of the quantum uncertainty principle. Starting from an algebra in which the standard angular momentum operators are deformed by two parameters, [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text], we construct the corresponding momentum operators via [Formula: see text] where the radial operator [Formula: see text] is determined by the requirement that the standard momentum operator is recovered in the limit [Formula: see text], [Formula: see text]. The resulting commutation relations take the form [Formula: see text] where [Formula: see text] is a position-dependent deformation matrix. This leads to an uncertainty relation [Formula: see text] which is state-dependent, anisotropic and position-dependent. We use the term Generalized Uncertainty Principle (GUP) in its broad sense referring to any modification of the Heisenberg relation motivated by quantum-gravity ideas. However, the model does not yield a fixed minimal length of the kind familiar from conventional GUP models (e.g. [Formula: see text]). In the isotropic, limit the trace of the deformation matrix simplifies the bound to [Formula: see text] which can be considered as a rescaling of the uncertainty constant. Our work thus provides a geometric origin for modified uncertainty relations from symmetry breaking in the rotation group, and offers a framework in which quantum-gravity effects manifest themselves through state- and direction-dependent measurement limits, without necessarily introducing a universal minimal length.
Several approaches to quantum gravity suggest the emergence of a fundamental minimal length at the Planck scale. In quantum mechanics, this feature is naturally encoded through deformations of the Heisenberg algebra, leading to the Generalized Uncertainty Principle (GUP). While the phenomenological implications of GUP have been extensively explored, a consistent characterization of coherent states in minimal-length quantum mechanics remains elusive. In this work, we present a systematic analysis of coherent states for the one-dimensional harmonic oscillator. We show that the canonical equivalence among their standard characterizations - as eigenstates of the annihilation operator, displaced vacuum states and minimum-uncertainty wave packets - is generically lost in the presence of a minimal length. We then investigate the dynamical and semiclassical consequences of this inequivalence by comparing the evolution of generalized coherent states with that of states saturating the GUP. In particular, we demonstrate that minimal-length effects induce nontrivial deformations of phase-space trajectories and give rise to an intrinsic squeezing mechanism with no counterpart in ordinary quantum mechanics. These results establish a unified framework for coherence in GUP-based quantum theories and identify distinctive semiclassical signatures of minimal-length physics, opening a new avenue for probing quantum-gravitational effects.
Several phenomenological approaches to quantum gravity predict the existence of a minimal measurable length and/or a maximum measurable momentum near the Planck scale. When embedded into the framework of quantum mechanics, such constraints induce a modification of the canonical commutation relations and thus a generalization of the Heisenberg uncertainty relations, commonly referred to as generalized uncertainty principle (GUP). Different models of quantum gravity imply different forms of the GUP. For instance, in the framework of string theory the GUP is quadratic in the momentum operator, while in the context of doubly special relativity it includes an additional linear dependence. Among the possible physical consequences, it was recently shown that the quadratic GUP induces a universal decoherence mechanism, provided one assumes a foamy structure of quantum spacetime close to the Planck length. Along this line, in the present work we investigate the gravitational decoherence associated to the linear-quadratic GUP and we compare it with the one associated to the quadratic GUP. We find that, despite their similarities, the two generalizations of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle yield decoherence times that are completely uncorrelated and significantly distinct. Motivated by this result, we introduce a theoretical and experimental scheme based on cavity optomechanics to measure the different time evolution of nonlocal quantum correlations corresponding to the two aforementioned decoherence mechanisms. We find that the deviation between the two predictions occurs on time scales that are macroscopic and thus potentially amenable to experimental verification. This scenario provides a possible setting to discriminate between different forms of the GUP and therefore different models of quantum gravity.