Open Quantum System Approach to the Gravitational Decoherence of Spin-1/2 Particles

Abstract

This paper investigates the decoherence effect resulting from the interaction of squeezed gravitational waves with a system of massive particles in spatial superposition. This paper investigates the decoherence effect resulting from the interaction of squeezed gravitational waves with a system of massive particles in spatial superposition. We first employ the open quantum system approach to obtain the established decoherence in a spatial superposition of massive objects induced by squeezed gravitational waves. Subsequently, we focus on the spin-1/2 particle system, and our analysis reveals that the decoherence rate depends on both the squeezing strength and the squeezing angle of the gravitational waves. Our results demonstrate that squeezed gravitational waves with squeezing strengths of $r_p\ge 1.2$ and a squeezing angle of ${\phi }_p=\pi /2$ can induce a 1 % decoherence within 1 s free falling of a cloud of spin-1/2 particles. This investigation sheds light on the relationship between squeezed gravitational waves and the coherence of spatial superposition states in systems of massive particles and their spin. The dependence of decoherence on squeezing strength and, in the case of spin-$1/2$ particles, on the squeezing angle paves the way for further exploration and understanding of the quantum-gravity connection. We suggest that such an experimental setup could also be employed to eventually investigate the level of squeezing effect (and hence quantum-related properties) of gravitational waves produced in the early universe from inflation.

arXiv comment44 pages, 8 figures

References in corpus (53)

• Cosmological Backgrounds of Gravitational Waves
• A Spin Entanglement Witness for Quantum Gravity
• Gravitationally-induced entanglement between two massive particles is sufficient evidence of quantum effects in gravity
• Detecting a stochastic background of gravitational radiation: Signal processing strategies and sensitivities
• Sensitivity curves for searches for gravitational-wave backgrounds
• Detection methods for stochastic gravitational-wave backgrounds: a unified treatment
• Inflation and squeezed quantum states
• Stochastic Gravitational Wave Backgrounds
• Quantum Superposition of Massive Objects and the Quantization of Gravity
• Atom interferometry with trapped Fermi gases
• Effective Field Theory Approach to Gravitationally Induced Decoherence
• Gravitational Decoherence
• Matter Wave Interferometry of a Levitated Thermal Nano-Oscillator Induced and Probed by a Spin
• Observable quantum entanglement due to gravity
• Quantum-to-classical Transition of Cosmological Perturbations for Non-vacuum Initial States
• Pointer states for primordial fluctuations in inflationary cosmology
• A Master Equation for Gravitational Decoherence: Probing the Textures of Spacetime
• Shortcomings in the Understanding of Why Cosmological Perturbations Look Classical
• Signatures of the Quantization of Gravity at Gravitational Wave Detectors
• Motional Dynamical Decoupling for Matter-Wave Interferometry
• Inflationary spectra and violations of Bell inequalities
• Ultimate decoherence border for matter-wave interferometry
• Obstructions to Bell CMB Experiments
• The Noise of Gravitons
• Probing macroscopic realism via Ramsey correlations measurements
• Noise and decoherence induced by gravitons
• Observational constraints on quantum decoherence during inflation
• Decoherence effects in non-classicality tests of gravity
• Gravity-induced entanglement in optomechanical systems
• Relative Acceleration Noise Mitigation for Nanocrystal Matter-wave Interferometry: Application to Entangling Masses via Quantum Gravity
• Minimal decoherence from inflation
• Is the squeezing of relic gravitational waves produced by inflation detectable?
• Quantum Superposition of Two Gravitational Cat States
• Non Gaussianities from Quantum Decoherence during Inflation
• Measuring mechanical motion with a single spin
• Quantum recoherence in the early universe
• Leggett-Garg Inequalities for Squeezed States
• Quantum Effects in Gravity Waves
• Relativistic Bell Test within Quantum Reference Frames
• Photon-graviton scattering: A new way to detect anisotropic gravitational waves?
• Atom Interferometer Tests of Dark Matter
• Gravitational decoherence of photons
• Cosmic decoherence: primordial power spectra and non-Gaussianities
• Second-quantized Unruh-DeWitt detectors and their quantum reference frame transformations
• Comparing quantumness criteria
• Non-Markovian open quantum system approach to the early universe: I. Damping of gravitational waves by matter
• Environmental gravitational decoherence and a tensor noise model
• Collapse models: from theoretical foundations to experimental verifications
• Gravitational decoherence by the apparatus in the quantum-gravity induced entanglement of masses
• Atom Interferometry in a Vertical Optical Lattice
• Squeezed quantum states of graviton and axion in the universe
• Quantum coherence of photons at cosmological distances
• Field-induced entanglement in spatially superposed objects

Cited by in corpus (11)

• The Open Effective Field Theory of Inflation
• Cosmic Purity Lost: Perturbative and Resummed Late-Time Inflationary Decoherence
• Decoherence out of fire: Purity loss in expanding and contracting universes
• In-in formalism for the entropy of quantum fields in curved spacetimes
• An Open Effective Field Theory for light in a medium
• The effect of quantum decoherence on inflationary gravitational waves
• Open system dynamics in interacting quantum field theories
• Quantumness of gravitational field: A perspective on monogamy relation
• Decoherence of spin superposition state caused by a quantum electromagnetic field
• Exploring gravitational impulse via quantum Boltzmann equation
• Quantum state of fields in $SU(\infty )$ Quantum Gravity ($SU(\infty )$-QGR)