Space QUEST mission proposal: experimentally testing decoherence due to gravity

Joshi, S. K. et al. (2018) Space QUEST mission proposal: experimentally testing decoherence due to gravity. New Journal of Physics, 20(6), 063016. (doi: 10.1088/1367-2630/aac58b)

Abstract

Models of quantum systems on curved space-times lack sufficient experimental verification. Some speculative theories suggest that quantum correlations, such as entanglement, may exhibit different behavior to purely classical correlations in curved space. By measuring this effect or lack thereof, we can test the hypotheses behind several such models. For instance, as predicted by Ralph et al [5] and Ralph and Pienaar [1], a bipartite entangled system could decohere if each particle traversed through a different gravitational field gradient. We propose to study this effect in a ground to space uplink scenario. We extend the above theoretical predictions of Ralph and coworkers and discuss the scientific consequences of detecting/failing to detect the predicted gravitational decoherence. We present a detailed mission design of the European Space Agency's Space QUEST (Space—Quantum Entanglement Space Test) mission, and study the feasibility of the mission scheme.

• Item Type: Articles
• Additional Information: This work was funded by ESA under the grant number: 20772/07/NL/VJ (Topical Team). VP acknowledges financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness through the Severo Ochoa program for Centres of Excellence in R&D (SEV-2015-0522), from Fundaci Privada Cellex, and from Generalitat de Catalunya through the CERCA program.
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Hadfield, Professor Robert
• Authors: Joshi, S. K., Pienaar, J., Ralph, T. C., Cacciapuoti, L., McCutcheon, W., Rarity, J., Giggenbach, D., Lim, J. G., Makarov, V., Fuentes, I., Scheidl, T., Beckert, E., Bourennane, M., Bruschi, D. E., Cabello, A., Capmany, J., Carrasco-Casado, A., Diamanti, E., Dusek, M., Elser, D., Gulinatti, A., Hadfield, R. H., Jennewein, T., Kaltenbaek, R., Krainak, M. A., Lo, H.-K., Marquardt, C., Milburn, G., Peev, M., Poppe, A., Pruneri, V., Renner, R., Salomon, C., Skaar, J., Solomos, N., Stipcevic, M., Torres, J. P., Toyoshima, M., Villoresi, P., Walmsley, I., Weihs, G., Weinfurter, H., Zeilinger, A., Zukowski, M., and Ursin, R.
• College/School: College of Science and Engineering > School of Engineering > Electronics and Nanoscale Engineering
• Journal Name: New Journal of Physics
• Publisher: Institute of Physics Publishing Ltd.
• ISSN: 1367-2630
• ISSN (Online): 1367-2630
• Published Online: 17 May 2018
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2018 The Authors
• First Published: First published in New Journal of Physics 20(6): 063016
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced under a Creative Commons License