Quantum superpositions of Minkowski spacetime

Abstract

Within any anticipated unifying theory of quantum gravity, it should be meaningful to combine the fundamental notions of quantum superposition and spacetime to obtain so-called "spacetime superpositions": that is, quantum superpositions of different spacetimes not related by a global coordinate transformation. Here we consider the quantum-gravitational effects produced by superpositions of periodically identified Minkowski spacetime (i.e.\ Minkowski spacetime with a periodic boundary condition) with different characteristic lengths. By coupling relativistic quantum matter to fields on such a spacetime background (which we model using the Unruh-deWitt particle detector model), we are able to show how one can in-principle "measure" the field-theoretic effects produced by such a spacetime. We show that the detector's response exhibits discontinuous resonances at rational ratios of the superposed periodic length scale.

7+4 pages, 3 figures

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Cited by in corpus (22)

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• Gravitational quantum switch on a superposition of spherical shells
• Gravitational entanglement witness through Einstein ring image
• Subadditive Average Distances and Quantum Promptness
• Accelerated detector in a superposed spacetime
• Decoherence of a composite particle induced by a weak quantized gravitational field
• Gravity and the Superposition Principle
• Quantum correlation and origin of Hawking radiation for mass-superposed BTZ black holes
• Analogue simulation of quantum gravity black hole models in a dc-SQUID array
• 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
• Repeated measurements on non-replicable systems and their consequences for Unruh-DeWitt detectors
• A spacetime-covariant approach to inertial and accelerated quantum clocks in first-quantization
• Space-time superpositions as fluctuating geometries
• Quantum superposition of boundary condition in ${\mathrm{PAdS}}_2$
• Bosonic and fermionic mutual information of N-partite systems in dilaton black hole background
• Non-monotonic evolution of multipartite entanglement under the Unruh effect
• Probing Spacetime Topology and Superposition with Accelerated Detectors
• Geodesics in Quantum Gravity