Witnessing mass-energy equivalence with trapped atom interferometers
Abstract
We propose an experimental setup to probe the interplay between the quantum superposition principle and the gravitational time dilation arising from the mass-energy equivalence. It capitalizes on state-of-the-art atom interferometers that can keep atoms trapped in a superposition of heights in Earth's gravitational field for exceedingly long times reaching minute-scale. Our proposal consists of adding two additional laser pulses to the existing setups that would set up a clock trapped at a superposition of heights reading a quantum superposition of relativistic proper times. We develop a method to include relativistic corrections to Bloch oscillations which describe the trapped part of the interferometer. As a result, we derive all the trajectories arising in this setup, the phases acquired by different trajectories in the interferometer, and demonstrate that the effect of superposition of proper times would manifest itself in the interference pattern in two distinct ways: as visibility modulations, and as a shift of the resonant frequency of the atom. We argue that the latter might be observable with current technology.
- Publication:
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arXiv e-prints
- Pub Date:
- June 2024
- DOI:
- 10.48550/arXiv.2406.19037
- arXiv:
- arXiv:2406.19037
- Bibcode:
- 2024arXiv240619037P
- Keywords:
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- Quantum Physics;
- General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
- E-Print:
- 5+7 pages, 3 figures