2017/03/31 by Siddarth Koduru Joshi, Jacques Pienaar, Timothy C. Ralph +53 · 1 citation
Computer Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Classical mechanics #Computer science #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Curved space #Gravitation #Gravitational field #Physics #Quantum #Quantum Information and Cryptography #Quantum Mechanics and Applications #Quantum decoherence #Quantum entanglement #Quantum gravity #Quantum mechanics #Space (punctuation) #Theoretical physics #gr-qc #quant-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1088/1367-2630/aac58b
published as New J. Phys. 20, 063016 (2018) · 18 pages, 13 figures, included radiation damage to detectors in appendix
arxiv created 2018/01/09 · openalex publication_date 2018/05/17 · arxiv updated 2018/06/22 · openalex created_date 2020/11/23 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/06
Models of quantum systems on curved space-times lack sufficient experimental verification. Some speculative theories suggest that quantum correlations, such as entanglement, may exhibit different behavior to purely classical correlations in curved space. By measuring this effect or lack thereof, we can test the hypotheses behind several such models. For instance, as predicted by Ralph et al [ 5 ] and Ralph and Pienaar [ 1 ], a bipartite entangled system could decohere if each particle traversed through a different gravitational field gradient. We propose to study this effect in a ground to space uplink scenario. We extend the above theoretical predictions of Ralph and coworkers and discuss the scientific consequences of detecting/failing to detect the predicted gravitational decoherence. We present a detailed mission design of the European Space Agency's Space QUEST (Space—Quantum Entanglement Space Test) mission, and study the feasibility of the mission scheme.