Self-gravitational dephasing of quasi-classical Stern-Gerlach trajectories

Abstract

The nonlinear Schrödinger-Newton equation, a prospective semiclassical alternative to a quantized theory of gravity, predicts a gravitational self-force between the two trajectories corresponding to the two z-spin eigenvalues for a particle in a Stern-Gerlach interferometer. To leading order, this force results in a relative phase between the trajectories. For the experimentally relevant case of a spherical particle with localized wave function, we present a re-derivation of that phase which is both rigorous in its approximations and concise, allowing for simple but accurate experimental predictions.

References in corpus (4)

• A Spin Entanglement Witness for Quantum Gravity
• Gravitationally-induced entanglement between two massive particles is sufficient evidence of quantum effects in gravity
• On inference of quantization from gravitationally induced entanglement
• Three little paradoxes: making sense of semiclassical gravity

Cited by in corpus (3)

• State Swapping via Semiclassical Gravity
• A simple gravitational self-decoherence model
• Probing the Schroedinger-Newton equation in a Stern-Gerlach interferometer