Flaminia Giacomini: Quantum effects in gravity beyond the Newton potential.

Understanding the fundamental nature of gravity at the interface with quantum theory is a major open question in theoretical physics. Recently, the study of gravitating quantum systems, for instance a massive quantum system prepared in a quantum superposition of positions and sourcing a gravitational field, has attracted a lot of attention: experiments are working towards realising such a scenario in the laboratory, and measuring the gravitational field associated to a quantum source is expected to give some information about quantum aspects of gravity. However, there are still open questions concerning the precise conclusions that these experiments could draw on the nature of gravity, such as whether experiments in this regime will be able to test more than the Newtonian part of the gravitational field. In this talk, I will show that a static mass in a quantum state gives rise to effects that cannot be reproduced using the Newton potential nor with a known classical model of gravity. These effects can in principle be measured by performing an interference experiment, and are independent of graviton emission. Identifying stronger quantum aspects of gravity than those reproducible with the Newton potential is crucial to prove the nonclassicality of the gravitational field and to plan a new generation of experiments testing quantum aspects of gravity in a broader sense than what proposed so far.

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About QISS

The Quantum Information Structure of Spacetime (http://www.qiss.fr) is an interdisciplinary research initiative among several universities and research institutes all over the world, supported by the John Templeton Foundation through the grants https://www.templeton.org/grant/the-q... and https://www.templeton.org/grant/the-q..., coordinated from The Samy Maroun Center for Space, Time and the Quantum (http://www.spacetimeandquantum.com).

The goal of QISS is to explore and connect the research domains of Quantum Information/Computing, Quantum Gravity and Quantum Foundations. Main objectives are to found the physics of quantum spacetime on an information-theoretic basis, to bring within reach empirical access to quantum gravity in 'table-top' laboratory conditions by exploiting rapid advances in quantum computing related technologies and using quantum information theoretic concepts, and to promote an extensive interaction between physicists and philosophers on the conceptual role of information in spacetime physics.