Proposal for a Quantum Test of the Weak Equivalence Principle with Entangled Atomic Species

Abstract

We propose an experiment to test the Weak Equivalence Principle (WEP) with a test mass consisting of two entangled atoms of different species. In the proposed experiment, a coherent measurement of the differential gravity acceleration between the two atomic species is considered, by entangling two atom interferometers operating on the two species. The entanglement between the two atoms is heralded at the initial beam splitter of the interferometers through the detection of a single photon emitted by either of the atoms, together with the impossibility of distinguishing which atom emitted the photon. In contrast to current and proposed tests of the WEP, our proposal explores the validity of the WEP in a regime where the two particles involved in the differential gravity acceleration measurement are not classically independent, but entangled. We propose an experimental implementation using ${}^{85}$Rb and ${}^{87}$Rb atoms entangled by a vacuum stimulated rapid adiabatic passage protocol implemented in a high finesse optical cavity. We show that an accuracy below $10^{-7}$ on the Eötvös parameter can be achieved.

5 pages, 1 figure + Supplemental Material

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