Space-time fluctuations and a stochastic Schrödinger-Newton equation

Abstract

We propose a stochastic modification of the Schrödinger-Newton equation which takes into account the effect of extrinsic spacetime fluctuations. We use this equation to demonstrate gravitationally induced decoherence of two gaussian wave-packets, and obtain a decoherence criterion similar to those obtained in the earlier literature in the context of effects of gravity on the Schrödinger equation.

16 pages; two clarifying lines added in 1st paragraph on page 11; results unchanged; accepted for publication in Foundations of Physics

References in corpus (8)

• Gravitation and quantummechanical localization of macroobjects
• The Schrödinger-Newton equation and its foundations
• The Schrödinger-Newton equation as non-relativistic limit of self-gravitating Klein-Gordon and Dirac fields
• Notes on Certain Newton Gravity Mechanisms of Wave Function Localisation and Decoherence
• Problems with the Newton-Schrödinger Equations
• Stochastic modification of the Schrodinger-Newton equation
• Stochastic extensions of the regularized Schrödinger-Newton equation
• Crucial tests of macrorealist and semi-classical gravity models with freely falling mesoscopic nanospheres

Cited by in corpus (3)

• Gravity, Quantum Fields and Quantum Information: Problems with classical channel and stochastic theories
• The effects of the dark energy on the static Schrödinger-Newton system -- an Adomian Decomposition Method and Padé approximants based approach
• Series solution of the time-dependent Schrödinger-Newton equations in the presence of dark energy via the Adomian Decomposition Method