Testing the quantum nature of gravity without entanglement

Fuente: arXiv
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Autores principales: Lami, Ludovico, Pedernales, Julen S., Plenio, Martin B.
Formato: Preprint
Publicado: 2023
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author Lami, Ludovico
Pedernales, Julen S.
Plenio, Martin B.
author_facet Lami, Ludovico
Pedernales, Julen S.
Plenio, Martin B.
contents Given a unitary evolution $U$ on a multi-partite quantum system and an ensemble of initial states, how well can $U$ be simulated by local operations and classical communication (LOCC) on that ensemble? We answer this question by establishing a general, efficiently computable upper bound on the maximal LOCC simulation fidelity -- what we call an 'LOCC inequality'. We then apply our findings to the fundamental setting where $U$ implements a quantum Newtonian Hamiltonian over a gravitationally interacting system. Violation of our LOCC inequality can rule out the LOCCness of the underlying evolution, thereby establishing the non-classicality of the gravitational dynamics, which can no longer be explained by a local classical field. As a prominent application of this scheme we study systems of quantum harmonic oscillators initialised in coherent states following a normal distribution and interacting via Newtonian gravity, and discuss a possible physical implementation with torsion pendula. One of our main technical contributions is the analytical calculation of the above LOCC inequality for this family of systems. As opposed to existing tests based on the detection of gravitationally mediated entanglement, our proposal works with coherent states alone, and thus it does not require the generation of largely delocalised states of motion nor the detection of entanglement, which is never created at any point in the process.
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id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2302_03075
institution arXiv
publishDate 2023
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Testing the quantum nature of gravity without entanglement
Lami, Ludovico
Pedernales, Julen S.
Plenio, Martin B.
Quantum Physics
Mathematical Physics
Given a unitary evolution $U$ on a multi-partite quantum system and an ensemble of initial states, how well can $U$ be simulated by local operations and classical communication (LOCC) on that ensemble? We answer this question by establishing a general, efficiently computable upper bound on the maximal LOCC simulation fidelity -- what we call an 'LOCC inequality'. We then apply our findings to the fundamental setting where $U$ implements a quantum Newtonian Hamiltonian over a gravitationally interacting system. Violation of our LOCC inequality can rule out the LOCCness of the underlying evolution, thereby establishing the non-classicality of the gravitational dynamics, which can no longer be explained by a local classical field. As a prominent application of this scheme we study systems of quantum harmonic oscillators initialised in coherent states following a normal distribution and interacting via Newtonian gravity, and discuss a possible physical implementation with torsion pendula. One of our main technical contributions is the analytical calculation of the above LOCC inequality for this family of systems. As opposed to existing tests based on the detection of gravitationally mediated entanglement, our proposal works with coherent states alone, and thus it does not require the generation of largely delocalised states of motion nor the detection of entanglement, which is never created at any point in the process.
title Testing the quantum nature of gravity without entanglement
topic Quantum Physics
Mathematical Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2302.03075