Mesoscopic Mechanical Resonators as Quantum Non-Inertial Reference Frames

Abstract

An atom attached to a micrometer-scale wire that is vibrating at a frequency of 100 MHz and with displacement amplitude 1 nm experiences an acceleration magnitude 10^9 ms^-2, approaching the surface gravity of a neutron star. As one application of such extreme non-inertial forces in a mesoscopic setting, we consider a model two-path atom interferometer with one path consisting of the 100 MHz vibrating wire atom guide. The vibrating wire guide serves as a non-inertial reference frame and induces an in principle measurable phase shift in the wave function of an atom traversing the wire frame. We furthermore consider the effect on the two-path atom wave interference when the vibrating wire is modeled as a quantum object, hence functioning as a quantum non-inertial reference frame. We outline a possible realization of the vibrating wire, atom interferometer using a superfluid helium quantum interference setup.

Published version

References in corpus (7)

• Reference frames, superselection rules, and quantum information
• Matter-wave interferometry in a double well on an atom chip
• Quantum squeezing of motion in a mechanical resonator
• Overcoming loss of contrast in atom interferometry due to gravity gradients
• Kinematics and dynamics in noninertial quantum frames of reference
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Cited by in corpus (9)

• Quantum mechanics and the covariance of physical laws in quantum reference frames
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• Entanglement of quantum clocks through gravity
• Second-quantized Unruh-DeWitt detectors and their quantum reference frame transformations
• Transformation of Spin in Quantum Reference Frames
• Analogue Gravity on a Superconducting Chip
• Simulating indefinite causal order with Rindler observers
• Quantum Galilei group as quantum reference frame transformations
• Relational superposition measurements with a material quantum ruler