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Experimental Design for Measuring the Inverse-Roughness Constant of Quantum Coherence

Robert Markham

Published Mar 13, 2026• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

A companion paper [1] derived an inverse-roughness law for quantum coherence length: L_c = K_lab / R_n, where L_c is the entanglement coherence length, R_n is the refractive-index gradient roughness of the intervening medium, and K_lab is a proportionality constant. The hyperbolic form of this relationship was derived from geometric principles within the Field Intrinsic Gravity Induced Density (FIGID) framework, but the constant K_lab has not been measured. This paper presents an experimental protocol for determining K_lab in optical fiber by systematically varying the refractive-index roughness through controlled thermal perturbation and measuring the resulting entanglement fidelity as a function of fiber length. The protocol uses standard entangled photon sources, commercially available fiber, and established coincidence-counting techniques. If L_c × R_n = constant across multiple roughness settings within a single medium, the hyperbolic form is confirmed and K_lab is determined. The protocol is designed to be executable by any quantum optics laboratory with an entanglement distribution setup.

DOI
10.5281/zenodo.19010077

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A companion paper [1] derived an inverse-roughness law for quantum coherence length: L_c = K_lab / R_n, where L_c is the entanglement coherence length, R_n is the refractive-index gradient roughness of the intervening medium, and K_lab is a proportionality constant. The hyperbolic form of this relationship was derived from geometric principles within the Field Intrinsic Gravity Induced Density (FIGID) framework, but the constant K_lab has not been measured. This paper presents an experimental protocol for determining K_lab in optical fiber by systematically varying the refractive-index roughness through controlled thermal perturbation and measuring the resulting entanglement fidelity as a function of fiber length. The protocol uses standard entangled photon sources, commercially available fiber, and established coincidence-counting techniques. If L_c × R_n = constant across multiple roughness settings within a single medium, the hyperbolic form is confirmed and K_lab is determined. The protocol is designed to be executable by any quantum optics laboratory with an entanglement distribution setup.
Quantum entanglement is usually treated as a nonlocal correlation between two particles, with no physical mechanism explaining how the shared state persists across distance. This paper develops a geometric account of entanglement within the Field Intrinsic Gravity Induced Density (FIGID) framework. When a photon enters a nonlinear crystal and undergoes parametric down-conversion, the result is not two independent particles. It is one field condensation that has been divided into two lobes of a single extended field state. These lobes remain connected through the fill-density substrate at baseline density ρ₀. The coherence of this extended state is governed not by the gradient of the fill-density field but by its roughness — the spatial variance of the gradient, which measures how rapidly the field landscape bends. This roughness is defined as a scalar quantity σ_ρ = avg(|∇δρ|²), and it determines the coherence length through an inverse-roughness law: L_c = K_lab / R_n, where R_n is the measurable refractive-index gradient roughness and K_lab is a universal constant. This law predicts that coherence length is controlled entirely by the environmental roughness of the intervening medium, producing a universal hyperbola that spans vacuum, optical fiber, and open air. The coupling constant β between fill-density and refractive index is fixed by the FIGID complementarity relation S × T = 1, giving β = ρ₀/2 with no adjustable parameters. The coherence law therefore contains only one undetermined quantity: the collapse threshold C₀. The framework provides a physical mechanism for why entangled states persist: they are one object, and the environment determines how far that object can stretch before being forced to localize. A companion paper [11] establishes that localization is driven by the gradient environment of the detector, not by pre-existing properties of the particle, ensuring compatibility with Bell’s theorem. A specific experimental prediction distinguishes this account from standard decoherence theory: active field smoothing of the intervening medium should extend entanglement range beyond what passive vacuum improvement alone achieves.
The Born rule—that measurement probabilities equal the squared amplitude of the wavefunction—has been treated as a fundamental postulate of quantum mechanics since 1926. Every major interpretation either assumes it or struggles to derive it from other postulates. This paper derives the Born rule as the uniform-coupling limit of a physical measurement interaction within the Field Intrinsic Gravity Induced Density (FIGID) framework. A companion paper [1] established that quantum measurement is gradient-driven localization: the field density gradient of a macroscopic apparatus forces a diffuse field condensation to concentrate at the point of strongest interaction. Here we formalize this mechanism as an interaction Hamiltonian coupling the apparatus gradient profile G(x) to the system’s condensation density ρ₂(x) = |ψ(x)|². The apparatus gradient is a macroscopic, static field configuration—the system responds to it as a background potential, not as a propagating quantum exchange. This static-coupling structure, which parallels FIGID’s treatment of gravitational interactions, yields a measurement law with the transition rate linear in G. In the uniform-coupling limit—when the apparatus gradient varies negligibly across the system’s coherence length—the measurement probabilities reduce exactly to the Born rule. Deviations from Born statistics are predicted when the dimensionless parameter L₂|∇G|/G₀ approaches unity, where L₂ is the coherence length determined by the inverse-roughness law L₂ = Kₗₐₘ/Rₙ [2]. The derivation requires one structural assumption—local scalar coupling between apparatus and system—and produces the Born rule as its leading-order consequence, with quantitative correction terms that are experimentally testable.
Quantum coherence is an essential ingredient in quantum information processing and plays a central role in emergent fields such as nanoscale thermodynamics and quantum biology. However, our understanding and quantitative characterization of coherence as an operational resource are still very limited. Here we show that any degree of coherence with respect to some reference basis can be converted to entanglement via incoherent operations. This finding allows us to define a novel general class of measures of coherence for a quantum system of arbitrary dimension, in terms of the maximum bipartite entanglement that can be generated via incoherent operations applied to the system and an incoherent ancilla. The resulting measures are proven to be valid coherence monotones satisfying all the requirements dictated by the resource theory of quantum coherence. We demonstrate the usefulness of our approach by proving that the fidelity-based geometric measure of coherence is a full convex coherence monotone, and deriving a closed formula for it on arbitrary single-qubit states. Our work provides a clear quantitative and operational connection between coherence and entanglement, two landmark manifestations of quantum theory and both key enablers for quantum technologies.
The laws of reflection and refraction are typically derived using a dispersion relation that assumes that the angular frequency stays the same across a vacuum--dielectric interface and that the angular wave number increases. At the single photon level, this means that the total energy of the photon is conserved but the linear momentum is not. Here I derive the laws of reflection and refraction for a single photon using a dispersion relation that is consistent with the conservation of both total energy and linear momentum. To ensure that both conservation laws are upheld, the optical path length must be considered to be more fundamental than the geometrical path length when reckoning optical distances. As long as the medium is transparent, the optical path length traveled by a photon in a given duration of time is constant. By contrast, the geometrical path length traveled in a given duration of time is inversely proportional to the index of refraction. A photon propagating across a vacuum--dielectric interface is considered to be an indivisible package whose total energy (and angular frequency) and linear momentum (and angular wave number) remain constant, but whose velocity decreases with refractive index as a result of unspecified electromagnetic interactions.
The goal of this project was to develop an apparatus to measure the coherence length of the light waves produced by different lasers.The coherence length is the distance over which two interacting waves maintain a constant relative phase.The method selected to achieve the goal of the project was to introduce the laser light into a modified Michelson interferometer arrangement while observing and measuring the resulting interference pattern. This pattern can be interpreted in terms of the properties of the laser light from which the pattern was produced, including, it was predicted, its coherence length. In order to characterize the apparatus and develop a means of interpreting the interference patterns, two different lasers were used: a red diode laser taken from an inexpensive laser pointer, and a red He-Ne laser. As part of this project the quantum eraser phenomenon and bandwidth of the diode and He-Ne lasers were also investigated. The project is continuing an investigation of the utility of the apparatus for coherence length measurements.