The Schrodinger-Newton (S-N) equation—a non-linear modification of quantum mechanics where the wave function experiences its own gravitational self-energy—has long been studied as a deterministic model for gravitational wave function collapse. This work provides a focused analysis of its phenomenology, explicitly treating it as a deterministic alternative to stochastic collapse models like Continuous Spontaneous Localization (CSL). We clarify the emergence of classical particle trajectories within this framework and derive its unique experimental signature: a mass- and separation-dependent shift in matter-wave interference fringes, distinct from the mere visibility loss predicted by decoherence or stochastic models. We provide a detailed roadmap for testing this prediction against competing approaches, critically assessing the experimental challenges and parameter constraints. Our work reframes the S-N equation as a concrete, falsifiable phenomenological model with a clear discriminant for future matter-wave experiments.
The Schrodinger-Newton (S-N) equation—a non-linear modification of quantum mechanics where the wave function experiences its own gravitational self-energy—has long been studied as a deterministic model for gravitational wave function collapse. This work provides a focused analysis of its phenomenology, explicitly treating it as a deterministic alternative to stochastic collapse models like Continuous Spontaneous Localization (CSL). We clarify the emergence of classical particle trajectories within this framework and derive its unique experimental signature: a mass- and separation-dependent shift in matter-wave interference fringes, distinct from the mere visibility loss predicted by decoherence or stochastic models. We provide a detailed roadmap for testing this prediction against competing approaches, critically assessing the experimental challenges and parameter constraints. Our work reframes the S-N equation as a concrete, falsifiable phenomenological model with a clear discriminant for future matter-wave experiments.
Abstract Models of spontaneous wave function collapse describe the quantum-to-classical transition by assuming a progressive breakdown of the superposition principle when the mass of the system increases, providing a well-defined phenomenology in terms of a non-linearly and stochastically modified Schrödinger equation, which can be tested experimentally. The most popular of such models is the continuous spontaneous localization (CSL) model: in its original version, the collapse is driven by a white noise, and more recently, generalizations in terms of colored noises, which are more realistic, have been formulated. We will analyze how current non-interferometric tests bound the model, depending on the spectrum of the noise. We will find that low frequency purely mechanical experiments provide the most stable and strongest bounds. Graphical abstract
Quantum mechanics is an extremely successful theory that agrees with every experimental test. However, the principle of linear superposition, a central tenet of the theory, apparently contradicts a commonplace observation: macroscopic objects are never found in a linear superposition of position states. Moreover, the theory does not explain why during a quantum measurement, deterministic evolution is replaced by probabilistic evolution, whose random outcomes obey the Born probability rule. In this article a review is given of an experimentally falsifiable phenomenological proposal, known as continuous spontaneous collapse: a stochastic nonlinear modification of the Schr\"odinger equation, which resolves these problems, while giving the same experimental results as quantum theory in the microscopic regime. Two underlying theories for this phenomenology are reviewed: trace dynamics and gravity-induced collapse. As the macroscopic scale is approached, predictions of this proposal begin to differ appreciably from those of quantum theory and are being confronted by ongoing laboratory experiments that include molecular interferometry and optomechanics. These experiments, which test the validity of linear superposition for large systems, are reviewed here, and their technical challenges, current results, and future prospects summarized. It is likely that over the next two decades or so, these experiments can verify or rule out the proposed stochastic modification of quantum theory.
Models of dynamical wave function collapse consistently describe the breakdown of the quantum superposition with the growing mass of the system by introducing non-linear and stochastic modifications to the standard Schrödinger dynamics. Among them, Continuous Spontaneous Localization (CSL) was extensively investigated both theoretically and experimentally. Measurable consequences of the collapse phenomenon depend on different combinations of the phenomenological parameters of the model-the strength λ and the correlation length rC-and have led, so far, to the exclusion of regions of the admissible (λ-rC) parameters space. We developed a novel approach to disentangle the λ and rC probability density functions, which discloses a more profound statistical insight.
The Schr\"odinger-Newton equation has frequently been studied as a nonlinear modification of the Schr\"odinger equation incorporating gravitational self-interaction. However, there is no evidence yet as to whether nature actually behaves this way. This work investigates a possible way to experimentally test gravitational self-interaction. The effect of self-gravity on the interference of massive particles is studied by numerically solving the Schr\"odinger-Newton equation for a particle passing through a double-slit. The results show that the presence of gravitational self-interaction has an effect on the fringe width of the interference that can be tested in matter-wave interferometry experiments. Notably, this approach can distinguish between gravitational self-interaction and environment-induced decoherence, as the latter does not affect the fringe width. This result will also provide a way to test if gravity requires to be quantized on the scale of ordinary quantum mechanics.
We examine the origin of the Newton–Schrödinger equations (NSEs) that play an important role in alternative quantum theories (AQT), macroscopic quantum mechanics and gravity-induced decoherence. We show that NSEs for individual particles do not follow from general relativity (GR) plus quantum field theory (QFT). Contrary to what is commonly assumed, the NSEs are not the weak-field (WF), non-relativistic (NR) limit of the semi-classical Einstein equation (SCE) (this nomenclature is preferred over the 'Moller–Rosenfeld equation') based on GR+QFT. The wave-function in the NSEs makes sense only as that for a mean field describing a system of N particles as , not that of a single or finite many particles. From GR+QFT the gravitational self-interaction leads to mass renormalization, not to a non-linear term in the evolution equations of some AQTs. The WF-NR limit of the gravitational interaction in GR+QFT involves no dynamics. To see the contrast, we give a derivation of the equation (i) governing the many-body wave function from GR+QFT and (ii) for the non-relativistic limit of quantum electrodynamics. They have the same structure, being linear, and very different from NSEs. Adding to this our earlier consideration that for gravitational decoherence the master equations based on GR+QFT lead to decoherence in the energy basis and not in the position basis, despite some AQTs desiring it for the 'collapse of the wave function', we conclude that the origins and consequences of NSEs are very different, and should be clearly demarcated from those of the SCE equation, the only legitimate representative of semiclassical gravity, based on GR+QFT.
Based on the assumption that the standard Schrödinger equation becomes gravitationally modified for massive macroscopic objects, two independent proposals have survived from the 1980s. The Schrödinger–Newton equation (1984) provides well-localized solitons for free macro-objects but lacks the mechanism of how extended wave functions collapse on solitons. The gravity-related stochastic Schrödinger equation (1989) provides the spontaneous collapse, but the resulting solitons undergo a tiny diffusion, leading to an inconvenient steady increase in the kinetic energy. We propose the stochastic Schrödinger–Newton equation, which contains the above two gravity-related modifications together. Then, the wave functions of free macroscopic bodies will gradually and stochastically collapse to solitons, which perform inertial motion without momentum diffusion: conservation of momentum and energy is restored.