Due to the lack of experimental evidence of the quantum nature of gravity, interest in phenomena at the interface of quantum mechanics and gravity is growing. In this thesis we study two possible phenomena: vacuum fluctuations and collapse models. In the case of the former, we study both electromagnetic and gravitational fields as the origin of the fluctuations. In both cases we study the effect of the fluctuations on massive particles in harmonic oscillator potentials using open quantum system methods. For both fields, the fluctuations result in a frequency shift of the oscillator and the generation of coherences. For the electromagnetic case, we assess the role of the long-wavelength and rotating-wave approximations and show that the magnitude of the frequency shift is dependent on both approximations. We estimate the magnitude of the shift using parameters from a single-electron cyclotron experiment. For fluctuations of the gravitational field, we find the dynamics of the particle is tied to the choice of position observable. We study the interaction of two massive particles considering two choices of position observable: (i) a frame-dependent coordinate separation and (ii) a frame-independent geodesic separation. We find in the case of free particles (i) leads to unitary dynamics but (ii) leads to dissipation. We also find in the case of particles coupled through a linear spring that the magnitude of the frequency shift is dependent on the position observable chosen. Finally, we consider another possible phenomena associated with quantum gravity, collapse models. Existing literature suggests that inverted harmonic potentials are a good choice for measuring the diffusion predicted in collapse modes. Furthermore, it has been shown that phonon counting techniques, along with Gaussian transformations, can in principle obtain the fundamental quantum Cram´er-Rao bound. We find the required squeezing to obtain this limit for an inverted harmonic oscillator.
Due to the lack of experimental evidence of the quantum nature of gravity, interest in phenomena at the interface of quantum mechanics and gravity is growing. In this thesis we study two possible phenomena: vacuum fluctuations and collapse models. In the case of the former, we study both electromagnetic and gravitational fields as the origin of the fluctuations. In both cases we study the effect of the fluctuations on massive particles in harmonic oscillator potentials using open quantum system methods. For both fields, the fluctuations result in a frequency shift of the oscillator and the generation of coherences. For the electromagnetic case, we assess the role of the long-wavelength and rotating-wave approximations and show that the magnitude of the frequency shift is dependent on both approximations. We estimate the magnitude of the shift using parameters from a single-electron cyclotron experiment. For fluctuations of the gravitational field, we find the dynamics of the particle is tied to the choice of position observable. We study the interaction of two massive particles considering two choices of position observable: (i) a frame-dependent coordinate separation and (ii) a frame-independent geodesic separation. We find in the case of free particles (i) leads to unitary dynamics but (ii) leads to dissipation. We also find in the case of particles coupled through a linear spring that the magnitude of the frequency shift is dependent on the position observable chosen. Finally, we consider another possible phenomena associated with quantum gravity, collapse models. Existing literature suggests that inverted harmonic potentials are a good choice for measuring the diffusion predicted in collapse modes. Furthermore, it has been shown that phonon counting techniques, along with Gaussian transformations, can in principle obtain the fundamental quantum Cram´er-Rao bound. We find the required squeezing to obtain this limit for an inverted harmonic oscillator.
Quantum mechanics exhibits a broad collection of theoretical results in complete agreement with experimental evidence. Besides showing unquestionable success in the description of isolated systems, it can be also successfully used to characterize non-isolated quantum system. In such a case, phenomena like dissipation, diffusion or decoherence. The theory of open quantum systems provides the framework where such features can be conveniently explained. \nThis thesis is about decoherence and collapse models. Albeit conceptually they are very far from each other, they both belong the framework of open quantum systems. Indeed, they consider systems interacting with an external entity: an environment for decoherence models, a noise for collapse models. Although the external influence has different origin, they can be described by similar dynamical equations and, to confirm or falsify them, the same experimental tests can be performed. \nThe quantum Brownian motion model can be considered the paradigm of decoherence models. We provide an exact and analytic equation for the time evolution of the operators and we show that the corresponding equation for the states is equivalent to well-known results in the literature. Our derivation allows to compute the time evolution of physically relevant quantities in a much easier way than previous formulations. Moreover, we are not bound to compute the time evolution of the state of the system, which in general is a complicated task. The explicit dependence on the initial state appears only in the initial expectation values and not in the dynamics. This makes possible the derivation of expectation values also for nontrivial states. \nAnother decoherence model we considered is a recently proposed model, based on the mass-energy equivalence. The model describes a decoherence source acting universally on every system whose superposition is extended on positions experiencing different gravitational potentials. We studied the conditions under which this mechanism becomes the dominant decoherence effect in typical interferometric experiments. We show that current experiments are off by several orders of magnitude. New ideas are needed to achieve the necessary requirements. \nThe second part of this thesis concerns collapse models, in particular the Continuous Spontaneous Localization (CSL) model. We focus on experimental tests that can probe it. In this respect, experiments can be grouped in two classes: interferometric tests and non-interferometric ones. The first class includes those experiments, which directly create and detect quantum superpositions of the center of mass of massive systems. The strongest bounds on the CSL parameters come from the second class of non-interferometric experiments, which are sensitive to small position displacements and detect CSL-induced diffusion in position. \nWe investigate how we can benefit from the non-interferometric perspective given by optomechanical setups, which have reached high sensitivities as force and position sensors. Three examples are considered.\nFirst, we compute the upper bounds on the CSL parameters, which can be inferred by the gravitational wave detectors LIGO, LISA Pathfinder and AURIGA.\nSecond, we report new results from an experiment based on a high-quality cantilever cooled to millikelvin temperature. High accuracy measurements of the cantilever thermal fluctuations reveal a nonthermal force noise of unknown origin. This excess noise is compatible with the CSL heating predicted by Adler. Several physical mechanisms able to explain the observed noise have been ruled out.\nThird, we propose an unattempted non-interferometric test aimed to investigate the still unexplored region of the CSL parameter space. Our proposal relies on torsional degrees of freedom rather than the usual vibrational ones. We believe that the test that has been put forward here, will eventually probe the unexplored CSL parameter space.
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.
The interplay between gravity and quantum mechanics remains a central open problem in modern physics. In this talk, I will discuss how a fundamentally classical, local gravitational interaction necessarily induces a diffusive modification of quantum dynamics. This diffusion leads to measurable noise even in the classical regime and provides a novel, experimentally accessible signature that does not require macroscopic quantum superpositions. I will derive a lower bound on the gravitational noise required to prevent entanglement generation and outline an experimental proposal based on torsion pendulums to test this bound. Next, I will consider the Schrödinger-Newton equation—a paradigmatic model of semiclassical gravity—which predicts nonlinear, self-induced gravitational effects. I will show how a periodic modulation of the trap frequency in levitated mechanical oscillators can amplify these otherwise negligible deviations by up to six orders of magnitude. The protocol remains feasible within current technologies and opens new pathways to experimentally test the SN dynamics through precise monitoring of the system’s position variance.
In this thesis we examine a variety of question regarding several quantum information-theoretic concepts as they manifest in the context of relativistic quantum fields. In particular, we study the qualitative and quantitative structure of entanglement (as well as more generalized quantum correlations) in field theory. Primarily we study the nature of vacuum entanglement, but consider spatial correlations in more general field states as well. We also discuss several novel aspects of particle creation phenomena, which generally go hand in hand with the presence of field entanglement. Such investigations are important from two perspectives. First, we gain enlightening new insight into the nature of quantum fields and, therefore, into the fundamental constituents of the matter contained in our universe. Second, we are able to consider the possibility of utilizing the relativistic nature of quantum fields as a resource for quantum technological tasks such as entanglement distribution, information processing, and metrology. \n \nAs a general guiding principle, here we approach such questions from an operational perspective. That is, we focus less on the mathematical facts derivable from a given theory and instead attempt to answer in what concretely physical ways such facts manifest themselves. For example, in what ways can vacuum entanglement actually be experimentally detected and measured, at least in principle? Such an approach allows us to circumvent otherwise problematic interpretational issues. It also lends itself more naturally to the proposal of real world experiments regarding, and utilizations of, the physics being investigated. In this thesis we utilize two models of detection as applied to field theory. \n \nThe first is one that we will develop from scratch and use to great effect in a number of studies; this is the non-perturbative oscillator detector. In this context, a ``detector" is simply some quantum system that is allowed to interact in some way with a quantum field. The response of this system then gives us information about the field properties. Typically such studies are done perturbatively, which presents several severe limitations on what may be investigated. We develop an alternative model, in which the detector is identified as a quantum harmonic oscillator, that allows non-perturbative solutions. We go on to apply this model to a variety of studies. We start by the examining the Unruh effect in a cavity setting. Not only are we able to examine the thermalization behavior of such a detector (which is stronger than what can be achieved perturbatively), we also demonstrate that the Unruh response is largely independent of the cavity boundary conditions, indicating a surprising amount of generality and universality to the phenomenon. We also consider the spacelike extraction of spatial entanglement by a set of such detectors. This includes the harvesting of genuine tripartite entanglement out of the vacuum, as well as the observation that the extractable quantum discord (a generalized measure of quantum correlations) can be greatly amplified by thermal fluctuations in the field, in opposite behavior to entanglement. This calls into question the nature of quantum discord, but also suggests at the possibility of actually using environmental noise as a quantum computational resource. Next, we use the oscillator detector model to great effect by proposing a method of reliably and sustainably generating and distributing entanglement via a cavity field. This protocol is inherently non-perturbative, and we refer to it as entanglement farming. Lastly, we modify the farming scenario to discover a very sensitive resonance effect that generates a large difference in the protocol output due to a minute change in system parameters, including the length of cavity being used. We put this forth as a potential method of quantum seismic metrology. \n \nThe second model that we will consider simply involves performing projective measurements onto a given set of field modes. We will find, however, that such an approach allows us to solve previously intractable problems. In particular, we apply this procedure to the physically sensible choice of localized, positive frequency field modes. Using this model we perform two different studies. In the first, we consider the response of an observer accelerating not through the vacuum state but rather a thermal state. Such a setting has not been (properly) studied previously, due to the computational challenges involved. By applying the localized projective measurement model we are able determine that such an observer sees both an Unruh response from acceleration and a response from the field thermality and that, critically, these responses are distinguishable. We then go on to examine the degradation of quantum correlations between two observers due to the acceleration of one of the observers. This is a prototypical scenario of interest and, by applying realistic measurement assumptions, we obtain results qualitatively different from many previous works on the issue. \n \nIn addition to these models, we question the nature of vacuum entanglement and particle creation by considering an operationally straightforward procedure that greatly demystifies these phenomena and puts them on to solid, physically concrete grounds. This operation is that of very quickly introducing a boundary condition onto one's field, for example by creating a mirror. The real particles generated in this process will then be quantum entangled with each other, even if they are created at spatially separate locations, and this entanglement derives exactly from the previously present vacuum entanglement. Not only does this realization provide an operationally satisfying interpretation of vacuum entanglement, it also suggests a straightforward procedure for its experimental verification. \n \nIn all of this, the computational framework that we will rely upon is that of Gaussian quantum mechanics. This is a restriction of continuous variable quantum mechanics that, while limited in its applicability, provides extremely powerful computational tools in the cases that it may be used. The scenarios of interest in this thesis fall within this category and lend themselves naturally to a Gaussian approach. With this we are able to perform, near trivially, many otherwise intractable studies.
Abstract Quantum vacuum fluctuations of the electromagnetic field result in two signatures on a harmonically trapped charged particle: a shift from the natural trap frequency and generation of quantum coherences. We assess the role of the long-wavelength and rotating-wave approximations (RWAs) in estimating this frequency shift. We estimate the magnitude of the frequency shift using parameters from a single-electron cyclotron experiment and also demonstrate how the dependence of the frequency shift on the magnetic field of the cyclotron is tied to the RWA. We expect the frequency shift to be observable in future experiments. We also suggest a possible route to detecting vacuum-generated quantum coherences. These experiments should settle the debate on the choice of approximations and gauge in capturing the effect of the quantum vacuum fluctuations.
We consider the effect of gravity on extended quantum systems (EQS) in the low energy regime. We model the gravitational effect due to a nearby source mass as a redshift in the internal Hamiltonian of the EQS. Due to the dependence of the energy spectrum of the EQS on the position of the massive particle (via the redshift) at zero temperature, our model predicts gravitational decoherence of the massive particle in the position basis. We show that the decoherence effect is multiplicative, in the sense that the increase in number of EQS gravitationally interacting with a single massive particle leads to an increase in its decoherence. If the considered model of gravitational redshift holds alongside the linearity of quantum mechanics (as an appropriate limit of an accepted theory for coupling quantum matter with gravity) to allow for a spatial superposition of the source mass, we propose that the same methodology can be applied to continuous fields, which are essentially EQS. This could provide an upper limit on the number of undiscovered fields by observing coherent superpositions of masses, e.g., in a matter wave interferometer. Besides, by taking a spin chain as a toy model of an EQS, we analyse the dependence of the new effect on relevant system parameters and identify the number of independent spin chains that can cause a detectable effect.