2011/05/31 by Magdalena Zych, Fabio Costa, Igor Pikovski +1 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #quant-ph #gr-qc
paper · pdf · doi:10.1038/ncomms1498
published as Nat. Commun. 2:505 (2011) · 11 pages, 2 figures, 2 tables, published version
arxiv created 2011/11/08 · arxiv updated 2011/11/09
Current attempts to probe general relativistic effects in quantum mechanics focus on precision measurements of phase shifts in matter-wave interferometry. Yet, phase shifts can always be explained as arising due to an Aharonov-Bohm effect, where a particle in a flat space-time is subject to an effective potential. Here we propose a novel quantum effect that cannot be explained without the general relativistic notion of proper time. We consider interference of a "clock" - a particle with evolving internal degrees of freedom - that will not only display a phase shift, but also reduce the visibility of the interference pattern. According to general relativity proper time flows at different rates in different regions of space-time. Therefore, due to quantum complementarity the visibility will drop to the extent to which the path information becomes available from reading out the proper time from the "clock". Such a gravitationally induced decoherence would provide the first test of the genuine general relativistic notion of proper time in quantum mechanics.