Searcharxiv⌕ Search
Home/Archive/arXiv

arXiv · 2309.07236

Open Quantum System Approach to the Gravitational Decoherence of Spin-1/2 Particles

Mohammad Sharifian·Moslem Zarei·Mehdi Abdi·Nicola Bartolo·Sabino Matarrese
View original source ↗Read source document ↗Export metadata ↓

Abstract

This paper investigates the decoherence effect resulting from the interaction of squeezed gravitational waves with a system of massive particles in spatial superposition. This paper investigates the decoherence effect resulting from the interaction of squeezed gravitational waves with a system of massive particles in spatial superposition. We first employ the open quantum system approach to obtain the established decoherence in a spatial superposition of massive objects induced by squeezed gravitational waves. Subsequently, we focus on the spin-1/2 particle system, and our analysis reveals that the decoherence rate depends on both the squeezing strength and the squeezing angle of the gravitational waves. Our results demonstrate that squeezed gravitational waves with squeezing strengths of $r_p\geq1.2$ and a squeezing angle of $\varphi_p=\pi/2$ can induce a 1 % decoherence within 1 s free falling of a cloud of spin-1/2 particles. This investigation sheds light on the relationship between squeezed gravitational waves and the coherence of spatial superposition states in systems of massive particles and their spin. The dependence of decoherence on squeezing strength and, in the case of spin-$1/2$ particles, on the squeezing angle paves the way for further exploration and understanding of the quantum-gravity connection. We suggest that such an experimental setup could also be employed to eventually investigate the level of squeezing effect (and hence quantum-related properties) of gravitational waves produced in the early universe from inflation.

Explore related subjects

gr-qcastro-ph.COquant-ph

Keep this discovery

BibTeXRIS

Mohammad Sharifian, Moslem Zarei, Mehdi Abdi, Nicola Bartolo, Sabino Matarrese. 2023-09-12. Open Quantum System Approach to the Gravitational Decoherence of Spin-1/2 Particles. https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevd.109.043510

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related papers

arXiv2026

Electrovacuum Black Hole Uniqueness

We prove the black hole uniqueness conjecture in the axially symmetric, stationary, electrovacuum setting, subject to the refined asymptotic analysis of the associated singular harmonic maps, which includes an analyticity hypothesis at the axes. More precisely, it is shown that any asymptotically flat solution of the Einstein--Maxwell equations in this class, with more than one black hole horizon component is either: Majumdar--Papapetrou, up to a duality rotation, in which case all logarithmic angle defects vanish, or every finite axis rod logarithmic angle defect is strictly negative and hence every interaction force is strictly attractive. The proof extends the singular harmonic map method used for vacuum Kerr uniqueness in [18].

gr-qc↗
arXiv2026

Constraining Modified Mass-to-Horizon Cosmology Through Primordial Inflationary Observables

We investigate slow-roll inflation in a modified cosmological framework inspired by a generalized mass-to-horizon relation (MHR), $M=\gamma {c^2 L^n}/{G}$, where $n$ is a real parameter and $\gamma$ a dimensional constant. Using Padmanabhan's emergence paradigm, we derive the modified Friedmann equations for a flat FRW universe and analyze the dynamics of a canonical scalar field (inflaton) under the slow-roll approximation. We study the resulting inflationary phenomenology for power-law and Starobinsky potentials. For power-law potentials, the MHR modification fails to reconcile these models with current CMB constraints on $r$ and $n_s$. In contrast, Starobinsky inflation exhibits significant sensitivity to deviations from $n=1$. A perturbative analysis ($n=1+\Delta$) yields corrections to inflationary observables. We observe that the scalar power-spectrum normalization, under a fixed-Starobinsky prescription, imposes the stringent constraint $0.960 \lesssim n \lesssim 1.040$ for $N=60$ efolds. This is considerably tighter than spectral-index bounds. Our results establish inflation, particularly Starobinsky-like models, as a sensitive probe of generalized horizon thermodynamics and departures from standard MHR scaling.

gr-qc↗
arXiv2026

Improving the Sensitivity of Gravitational Wave Detection with Weighted Conformal Prediction

In the last decade, kilometre-scale interferometric gravitational-wave detectors have observed hundreds of compact binary mergers, the majority of which are binary black holes. However, the data are noise-dominated, and multiple independent search algorithms (pipelines) are used to enhance sensitivity and improve robustness. Rather than the standard approach of selecting the most significant pipeline output, we combine the outputs from all pipelines using a conformal prediction-based framework to provide statistically rigorous confidence estimates for candidate events. While combining pipelines improves sensitivity and ranking robustness, it requires a principled statistical framework that remains valid as data properties evolve across observing runs. A key challenge is distribution shifts between simulated datasets used for training and calibration and the real, unlabelled, observations used for testing, which can invalidate coverage guarantees and bias confidence estimates. In this work, we address this challenge by incorporating likelihood-ratio reweighting into our conformal prediction framework to account for covariate shift. Using mock datasets containing simulated signals, we demonstrate that weighted conformal prediction restores well-calibrated coverage under covariate shift and increases the confidence of events near the detection threshold, recovering true signals that would otherwise be missed.

gr-qc↗