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arXiv · 2502.17575

On the quantum mechanics of entropic forces

Daniel Carney·Manthos Karydas·Thilo Scharnhorst·Roshni Singh·Jacob M. Taylor
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Abstract

It was conjectured thirty years ago that gravity could arise from the entropic re-arrangement of information. In this paper, we offer a set of microscopic quantum models which realize this idea in detail. In particular, we suggest a simple mechanism by which Newton's law of gravity arises from extremization of the free energy of a collection of qubits or oscillators, rather than from the exchange of virtual quanta of a fundamental field. We give both a local and non-local version of the construction, and show how to distinguish a range of these entropic models from ordinary perturbative quantum gravity using existing observations and near-term experiments.

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Daniel Carney, Manthos Karydas, Thilo Scharnhorst, Roshni Singh, Jacob M. Taylor. 2025-02-24. On the quantum mechanics of entropic forces. https://doi.org/10.1103/y7sy-3by1

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