Test of some Fundamental Principles in Physics via Quantum Interference with Neutrons and Photons
arXiv:0810.1325
Abstract
The limitations and possibilities that the concept of quantum interference offers as a tool for testing fundamental physics are explored here. The use of neutron interference as an instrument to confront against measurement readouts some of the principles behind metric theories of gravity will be analyzed, as well as some discrepancies between theory and experiment. The main restrictions that this model embodies for the study of some of the features of the structure of space--time will be explicitly pointed out. For instance, the conditions imposed by the necessary use of the semiclassical approximation. Additionally, the role that photon interference could play as an element in this context is also considered. In this realm we explore the differences between first-order and second-order coherence experiments, and underline the fact that the Hanbury--Brown--Twiss effect could open up some interesting experimental possibilities in the analysis of the structure of space--time. The void, in connection with the description of wave phenomena, implicit in the principles of metric theories is analyzed. The conceptual difficulties, that this void entails, are commented.
97 pages, three figures
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