Friday, June 19, 2015

Quantum Superposition Destroyed By Gravitational Time Dilation?

This is another interesting take on why we see our world classically and not quantum mechanically. Gravitational time dilation is enough to destroy coherent states that maintain superposition.

With this premise, the team worked out that even the Earth's gravitational field is strong enough to cause decoherence in quite small objects across measurable timescales. The researchers calculated that an object that weighs a gram and exists in two quantum states, separated vertically by a thousandth of a millimetre, should decohere in around a millisecond. 

I think this is similar to Penrose's claim that gravity is responsible for decoherence of quantum states. It will be interesting if anyone can experimentally verify this latest theoretical finding.

Zz.

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