2015/06/16 by P. C. E. Stamp, Stamp, P. C. E.
Medicine · Physics and Astronomy · #Biofield Effects and Biophysics #FOS: Physical sciences #General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc) #Noncommutative and Quantum Gravity Theories #Other Condensed Matter (cond-mat.other) #Quantum Mechanics and Applications #Quantum Physics (quant-ph)
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1506.05065
openalex publication_date 2015/06/16 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
It is argued that gravity should cause a breakdown of quantum mechanics, at low energies, accessible to table-top experiments. It is then shown that one can formulate a theory of quantum gravity in which gravitational correlations exist between worldline or worldsheet paths, for the particle or field of interest. Using a generalized equivalence principle, one can give a unique form for the correlators, yielding a theory with no adjustable parameters. A key feature of the theory is the "bunching" of quantum trajectories caused by the gravitational correlations - this is \it not a decoherence or a "collapse" mechanism. This bunching causes a breakdown of the superposition principle for large masses, with a very rapid crossover to classical behaviour at an energy scale which depends on the physical structure of the object. Formal details, and applications of the theory, are kept to a minimum in this paper; but we show how physical quantities can be calculated, and give a detailed discussion of the dynamics of a single particle.