Gravitational decoherence is a term for hypothetical mechanisms by which
gravitation
In physics, gravity () is a fundamental interaction which causes mutual attraction between all things with mass or energy. Gravity is, by far, the weakest of the four fundamental interactions, approximately 1038 times weaker than the stron ...
can act on
quantum mechanical
Quantum mechanics is a fundamental theory in physics that provides a description of the physical properties of nature at the scale of atoms and subatomic particles. It is the foundation of all quantum physics including quantum chemistry, qua ...
systems to produce
decoherence
Quantum decoherence is the loss of quantum coherence. In quantum mechanics, particles such as electrons are described by a wave function, a mathematical representation of the quantum state of a system; a probabilistic interpretation of the wa ...
. Advocates of gravitational decoherence include
Frigyes Károlyházy,
Roger Penrose
Sir Roger Penrose (born 8 August 1931) is an English mathematician, mathematical physicist, philosopher of science and Nobel Laureate in Physics. He is Emeritus Rouse Ball Professor of Mathematics in the University of Oxford, an emeritus fello ...
and
Lajos Diósi.
A number of experiments have been proposed to test the gravitational decoherence hypothesis.
and
Robert Lanza
Robert Lanza (born 11 February 1956 in Boston, Massachusetts) is an American medical doctor and scientist, currently Head of Astellas Global Regenerative Medicine, and Chief Scientific Officer of the Astellas Institute for Regenerative Medici ...
have argued that gravitational decoherence may explain the existence of the
arrow of time
The arrow of time, also called time's arrow, is the concept positing the "one-way direction" or "asymmetry" of time. It was developed in 1927 by the British astrophysicist Arthur Eddington, and is an unsolved general physics question. This ...
.
See also
*
Penrose interpretation
*
Diósi–Penrose model
*
Objective-collapse theory
Objective-collapse theories, also known as models of spontaneous wave function collapse or dynamical reduction models, are proposed solutions to the measurement problem, measurement problem in quantum mechanics. As with other theories called inte ...
*
Quantum gravity
Quantum gravity (QG) is a field of theoretical physics that seeks to describe gravity according to the principles of quantum mechanics; it deals with environments in which neither gravitational nor quantum effects can be ignored, such as in the vi ...
References
Quantum mechanics
Quantum gravity
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