Tuesday, Apr 5th
Marios Christodoulou, University of ViennaThe search for `table-top' quantum gravity signatures
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We know that the strong, weak and electromagnetic interactions require of quantum mechanics for their correct descriptions. This is in part because those three forces are important at the microscopic level and we know that at that level classical mechanics fails. Gravity is a bit different. At the microscopic level, its effects are negligible. For instance, the electric repulsion of two electrons (they have the same charge) is 1044 (that is one followed by 44 zeros) times larger than their gravitational attraction. Gravity is important in the macroscopic world, where quantum effects are washed out due to the large presence of degrees of freedom. Do we need to quantize gravity, then? Conceptual reasons suggest it, we do not really know how to consistently couple classical and quantum theories.
Recently, advances in quantum technologies have allowed to study gravitational interactions among objects of ever shrinking sizes. This opens the possibility of revealing quantum phenomena. In particular a phenomenon called entanglement in which the properties of the two masses become intertwined. But do they include quantum aspects of gravity? The issue is hotly debated. The experiments involve tiny levitated masses that are at microscopic distances from each other. Usually dynamics becomes clearer when masses are far away from each other, since one can introduce notions like waves, photons and gravitons, that are more difficult to characterize close to their sources. This has led to several claims and counterclaims in the literature. The talk gave an overview of the issues and papers involved and suggested that experiments in the relatively near future could help clarify the situation and perhaps offer a conclusive probe of the quantum nature of gravity.
