Exploring Quantum Gravity Phenomenology: Experiments with Interferometry

[marcus]

Sabine Hossenfelder recently wrote a blog post containing this parenthetical remark:
"(I had meant to write a summary of which possible experiments for quantum gravity pheno are presently being discussed and how plausible I think they are to deliver results, but I got distracted by Dyson’s above mentioned paper on graviton detection. The summary will follow some other time.)"

Sabine's 6 June 2013 post:
http://backreaction.blogspot.com/2013/06/quantum-gravity-phenomenology-neq.html

The issue of experimental detection of QG effects (in experiments that involve both GR and QM in some essential interconnected way, e.g. Earth gravitational field and interferometry) is an interesting one. In her 6 June post, Sabine quotes George Musser to the effect that

“[Q]uantum gravity” and “experiment” are… like peanut butter and chocolate. They actually go together quite tastily.
​

That was from George Musser's SciAm blog post, "Could simple experiments...?"
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com...ments-reveal-the-quantum-nature-of-spacetime/

As examples of a possible experiments Musser talks about some work published in Nature Communications (October 2011) by the Vienna group of C. Brukner. The Nature article is free online and, though technical in parts, was written to be fairly widely understood:
http://www.nature.com/ncomms/journal/v2/n10/pdf/ncomms1498.pdf?WT.ec_id=NCOMMS-20111018

The Brukner group co-authors also have a more pictorial/intuitive discussion of their proposals here:
"Quantum Complementarity Meets Gravitational Redshift"
http://www.2physics.com/2012/01/quantum-complementarity-meets.html

 

[DennisN]

Thanks marcus, interesting reading again! The experimental optimism is refreshing .