Quantum signatures of black hole mass superpositions

Abstract

We present a new operational framework for studying ``superpositions of spacetimes'', which are of fundamental interest in the development of a theory of quantum gravity. Our approach capitalizes on nonlocal correlations in curved spacetime quantum field theory, allowing us to formulate a metric for spacetime superpositions as well as characterizing the coupling of particle detectors to a quantum field. We apply our approach to analyze the dynamics of a detector (using the Unruh-deWitt model) in a spacetime generated by a BTZ black hole in a superposition of masses. We find that the detector exhibits signatures of quantum-gravitational effects corroborating and extending Bekenstein's seminal conjecture concerning the quantized mass spectrum of black holes in quantum gravity. Crucially, this result follows directly from the approach, without any additional assumptions about the black hole mass properties.

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Cited by in corpus (24)

• Quantum superpositions of Minkowski spacetime
• Unruh-DeWitt detector in dimensionally-reduced static spherically symmetric spacetimes
• Identification is Pointless: Quantum Coordinates, Localisation of Events, and the Quantum Hole Argument
• Entanglement harvesting in quantum superposed spacetime
• Dissipative dynamics of an open quantum battery in the BTZ spacetime
• Can the latent signatures of quantum superposition be detected through correlation harvesting?
• Quantum conformal symmetries for spacetimes in superposition
• Gravitational quantum switch on a superposition of spherical shells
• Gravitational entanglement witness through Einstein ring image
• Accelerated detector in a superposed spacetime
• A simple gravitational self-decoherence model
• Superpositions of thermalisations in relativistic quantum field theory
• Quantum thermal machines in BTZ black hole spacetime
• Decoherence of a composite particle induced by a weak quantized gravitational field
• Quantum correlation and origin of Hawking radiation for mass-superposed BTZ black holes
• A spacetime-covariant approach to inertial and accelerated quantum clocks in first-quantization
• Entropic uncertainty and coherence in Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet gravity
• Doubly Quantum Mechanics
• Back-action from inertial and non-inertial Unruh-DeWitt detectors revisited in covariant perturbation theory
• Space-time superpositions as fluctuating geometries
• Bosonic and fermionic mutual information of N-partite systems in dilaton black hole background
• Gravitational quantum speed limit
• Non-monotonic evolution of multipartite entanglement under the Unruh effect
• Coherence and Entanglement in a Non-commutative Spacetime