Probing quantum gravity effects with quantum mechanical oscillators
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THE EUROPEAN PHYSICAL JOURNAL D
Regular Article
Probing quantum gravity effects with quantum mechanical oscillators? Michele Bonaldi1,2 , Antonio Borrielli1,2 , Avishek Chowdhury3,4 , Gianni Di Giuseppe5,6 , Wenlin Li5 , Nicola Malossi5 , Francesco Marino3,4,a , Bruno Morana7 , Riccardo Natali5,6 , Paolo Piergentili5,6 , Giovanni A. Prodi2,8 , Pasqualina M. Sarro7 , Enrico Serra1,2,7 , Paolo Vezio4,9 , David Vitali3,5,6 , and Francesco Marin3,4,9,10 1 2
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Institute of Materials for Electronics and Magnetism, Nanoscience-Trento-FBK Division, I-38123 Povo, Trento, Italy Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN), Trento Institute for Fundamental Physics and Application, I-38123 Povo, Trento, Italy CNR-INO, L.go E. Fermi 6, I-50125 Firenze, Italy INFN, Sezione di Firenze, Via Sansone 1, I-50019 Sesto Fiorentino (FI), Italy School of Science and Technology, Physics Division, University of Camerino, Via Madonna delle Carceri, 9, I-62032 Camerino (MC), Italy INFN, Sezione di Perugia, Via A. Pascoli, I-06123 Perugia, Italy Laboratory of Electronic Components Technology and Materials (ECTM), Department of Microelectronics, Delft University of Technology, Feldmanweg 17, 2628 CT Delft, The Netherlands Dipartimento di Fisica, Universit` a di Trento, I-38123 Povo, Trento, Italy European Laboratory for Non-Linear Spectroscopy (LENS), Via N. Carrara 1, I-50019 Sesto Fiorentino (FI), Italy Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia, Universit` a di Firenze, Via G. Sansone 1, I-50019 Sesto Fiorentino (FI), Italy Received 30 March 2020 / Received in final form 21 July 2020 Published online 1 September 2020 c The Author(s) 2020. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com
Abstract. Phenomenological models aiming to join gravity and quantum mechanics often predict effects that are potentially measurable in refined low-energy experiments. For instance, modified commutation relations between position and momentum, that account for a minimal scale length, yield a dynamics that can be codified in additional Hamiltonian terms. When applied to the paradigmatic case of a mechanical oscillator, such terms, at the lowest order in the deformation parameter, introduce a weak intrinsic nonlinearity and, consequently, deviations from the classical trajectory. This point of view has stimulated several experimental proposals and realizations, leading to meaningful upper limits to the deformation parameter. All such experiments are based on classical mechanical oscillators, i.e., excited from a thermal state. We remark indeed that decoherence, that plays a major role in distinguishing the classical from the quantum behavior of (macroscopic) systems, is not usually included in phenomenological quantum gravity models. However, it would not be surprising if peculiar features that are predicted by considering the joined roles of gravity and quantum physics should manifest themselves just on purely quantum objects. On the basis of this consideration, we propose experiments aiming to observe possible quantum gravity eff
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