An operational, dynamics-preserving protocol to test whether quantum coherence reconstructibility in mesoscopic systems is fully captured by calibrated environmental decoherence. A covariance-based deviation Δ is scanned against an effective gravitational parameter Ξ; two signatures — composition invariance and the energy budget (heating/emission) — separate an environmental residual, an objective-collapse mechanism (Diósi–Penrose, CSL), and a structural, energy-conserving residual. A minimal model and a sensitivity forecast for levitated-optomechanics platforms are included. Null results bound residual reconstructibility; a reproducible deviation would test whether any remaining limitation reflects modified dynamics or incomplete local access to the complete physical state.
An operational, dynamics-preserving protocol to test whether quantum coherence reconstructibility in mesoscopic systems is fully captured by calibrated environmental decoherence. A covariance-based deviation Δ is scanned against an effective gravitational parameter Ξ; two signatures — composition invariance and the energy budget (heating/emission) — separate an environmental residual, an objective-collapse mechanism (Diósi–Penrose, CSL), and a structural, energy-conserving residual. A minimal model and a sensitivity forecast for levitated-optomechanics platforms are included. Null results bound residual reconstructibility; a reproducible deviation would test whether any remaining limitation reflects modified dynamics or incomplete local access to the complete physical state.
In simple terms, this work defines how potential limits to the reconstructibility of quantum coherence can be translated into measurable experimental constraints. It introduces a minimal phenomenological framework for testing possible structural limits to the reconstructibility of quantum coherence in the context of OFID-G. Rather than proposing a new dynamical model, the approach defines an operational residual quantity after calibration of environmental decoherence, and introduces minimal parametrizations of this residual as a function of experimentally controllable parameters. Two generic behaviors are considered: a continuous residual contribution leading to an irreducible floor, and a threshold-like transition beyond a critical parameter value. This framework allows null experimental results to be translated into quantitative constraints, providing a direct interface between conceptual hypotheses and experimental methodologies in mesoscopic quantum systems. This work complements previous experimental proposals by providing a minimal parameterization layer suitable for interpretation and constraint-setting. In line with standard approaches to parameter estimation in quantum experiments, the framework enables systematic constraint-setting from null results.
This work proposes an operational framework, denoted OFID-G, to investigate whether quantum coherence remains fully reconstructible from locally accessible information, even when global unitary evolution is preserved. The framework is formulated within the Ontological Framework of Imbricated Degrees (OFID), in which physical states may involve degrees of freedom that are not fully accessible within a given local observational regime. Within this perspective, OFID-G defines a possible structural limitation on the local accessibility of coherence, without introducing any modification to quantum dynamics. The central concept is regime-dependent reconstructibility: coherence is said to be reconstructible if a single recovery operation, fixed by calibration alone, can operationally recover it across a tomographically informative family of preparations, and non-reconstructible if a persistent limitation remains despite such procedures. This state-independent formulation anchors the criterion in the theory of approximate recoverability of quantum channels. Rather than predicting a specific mechanism, the framework defines a falsifiable structural criterion distinguishing reconstructible and non-reconstructible regimes, based on controlled variation of physically relevant parameters. The approach remains fully compatible with standard quantum mechanics and does not invoke collapse models or deviations from unitarity. Its empirical content lies in testing whether all observed decoherence effects can be fully accounted for by known environmental mechanisms. This provides a minimal and operational test of the completeness of standard decoherence modeling, shifting the focus from dynamical mechanisms to structural limitations of information accessibility. The framework is developed within the OFID research program (DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.18868538); its concrete experimental realization is developed in a companion operational paper (DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.19351945). Project page :https://alexsasfrance.github.io/OFID-framework/
The transition from the quantum to the classical realm remains one of the most profound open questions in physics. While quantum theory predicts the existence of macroscopic superpositions, their apparent absence in the everyday world is attributed either to environmental decoherence or to an intrinsic mechanism for wave-function collapse. This work presents a quantitative and experimentally grounded framework for distinguishing these possibilities. We propose a levitated optomechanical platform capable of generating controllable Schrodinger-cat states in the center of mass motion of a dielectric nanosphere. A comprehensive master equation incorporates gas collisions, black-body radiation, and photon-recoil noise, establishing a calibrated environmental baseline. The Continuous Spontaneous Localization (CSL) model is embedded within the same framework, predicting a characteristic saturation of the decoherence rate with superposition size and a quadratic scaling with mass. A Bayesian inference protocol is outlined to discriminate collapse induced excess decoherence from environmental noise. Together these elements provide a concrete experimental blueprint for a decisive test of quantum linearity, either revealing new physics beyond standard quantum mechanics or setting the most stringent bounds to date on objective-collapse parameters.
Levitated optomechanical systems are approaching the regime where macroscopic quantum superpositions become experimentally accessible. A central question is whether gravity itself, through its unavoidable coupling to material quantum fluctuations, imposes a fundamental decoherence channel on such superpositions. Starting from two independently well-tested physical elements—the quantum vacuum fluctuations of the material energy-momentum tensor, and the weak-field linear response kernel of classical general relativity—we derive a structurally rigid scaling law for the gravitational decoherence rate: \Gamma \propto G M^2 d^2 / (\hbar L^3) \cdot \Phi(l_*/L). The exponents and dependence on mass M, superposition separation d, and object size L are fixed entirely by dimensional analysis and the semiclassical field equations, without tunable parameters. The overall amplitude is set by a single phenomenological input—the ultraviolet cutoff scale l_* of the effective geometric noise. Identifying l_* with the Planck length yields \Phi \sim \mathcal{O}(1) and a decoherence rate of order 1\,\text{Hz} for nanoparticles with M \sim 10^{-14}\,\text{kg}, d \sim 10^{-7}\,\text{m}, and L \sim 10^{-6}\,\text{m}, placing the prediction within the foreseeable sensitivity window of next-generation levitated optomechanical setups. We provide explicit falsification conditions, a three-path staged verification strategy that does not require simultaneous optimisation of all parameters, and operational signatures—including a distinctive pure-dephasing channel without energy relaxation—that distinguish this mechanism from environmental noise, zero-temperature electromagnetic vacuum fluctuations, and the Diósi-Penrose model.
Laboratory-based experimental tests remain a central challenge in the study of the quantum-gravity interface. We present a quantitative, experimentally testable prediction for gravitationally induced quantum decoherence of spatial superpositions in levitated optomechanical systems. Starting from two independently well-tested physical elements—the quantum nature of material energy-momentum fluctuations (established in particle physics) and the linear response kernel of classical geometry (derived from the weak-field limit of general relativity and verified by gravitational-wave observations)—and supplementing them with a minimal extension postulate for superposition states, we obtain a rigid scaling law for the gravitational decoherence rate: \Gamma \sim G M^2 d^2 / (\hbar L^3) \cdot \Phi(l_*/L), where M is the mass of the object, d the spatial separation of the superposition branches, L the characteristic linear dimension, and \Phi a dimensionless function encoding the unknown ultraviolet cutoff scale l_* of the effective geometric noise. The structural form \Gamma \propto M^2 d^2 / L^3 contains no free adjustable parameters; the overall amplitude is set by the choice of l_*. Identifying l_* with the Planck length \ell_P = \sqrt{\hbar G / c^3}—the only known scale bridging quantum theory and gravity—yields \Phi \sim \mathcal{O}(1) and a specific numerical target. For current levitated nanoparticle experiments (M \sim 10^{-14}\,\text{kg}, d \sim 10^{-7}\,\text{m}, L \sim 10^{-6}\,\text{m}), this Planck-scale hypothesis predicts a decoherence rate of order 1\,\text{Hz}, placing it within the foreseeable sensitivity window of next-generation optomechanical setups. We discuss the exclusive physical signatures distinguishing this mechanism from environmental decoherence channels and outline explicit falsification conditions, providing experimental groups with a concrete target to probe the quantum-gravity interface in the laboratory.
We study idealized levitated protocols that create spatial superpositions of massive test particles. For each protocol, we compare the dimensionless contrast-loss exponent of mass-proportional continuous spontaneous localization (CSL) with the Diósi--Penrose (DP) self-energy exponent EGτ/ℏ. We first prove that the point-particle CSL separation kernel has an exact random-unitary realization: Gaussian momentum kicks arriving at Poisson-distributed times produce the same unconditional decay of spatial coherence, although a pure state conditioned on the complete kick record remains pure. The separation kernel alone therefore specifies an operational decoherence law, not the occurrence of objective collapse. We then show that the ratio of the CSL and DP exponents is independent of particle mass and interrogation time. In the point-particle model it depends only on branch separation and an effective distance; for the standard GRW reference parameters, its resolved-superposition crossover is x∗≈1.91nm. For rigid spherical bodies with an arbitrary normalized radial mass profile, total mass, overall density scale, and interrogation time again cancel, leaving a dimensionless geometry factor. The results distinguish three requirements for a decisive experiment: detectable absolute effects, a controlled comparison of CSL and DP scales, and observables capable of discriminating physically different dynamics that share the same ensemble decoherence kernel.