Quantum decoherence and gravitational waves

TL;DR

This paper investigates how gravitational waves could cause quantum decoherence, finding that microscopic systems like atom interferometers are unaffected while macroscopic systems like the Earth-Moon system rapidly lose quantum coherence.

Contribution

It provides a quantitative analysis of gravitational wave-induced decoherence, highlighting the different effects on microscopic and macroscopic systems.

Findings

Atom interferometers remain unaffected by gravitational wave decoherence.

Earth-Moon system experiences rapid quantum decoherence due to gravitational waves.

Decoherence depends on the system's mass relative to the Planck mass.

Abstract

The quite different behaviors exhibited by microscopic and macroscopic systems with respect to quantum interferences suggest the existence of a borderline beyond which quantum systems loose their coherences and can be described classically. Gravitational waves, generated within our galaxy or during the cosmic expansion, constitute a universal environment susceptible to lead to such a quantum decoherence mechanism. We assess this idea by studying the quantum decoherence due to gravitational waves on typical microscopic and macoscopic systems, namely an atom interferometer (HYPER) and the Earth-Moon system. We show that quantum interferences remain unaffected in the former case and that they disappear extremely rapidly in the latter case. We obtain the relevant parameters which, besides the ratio of the system's mass to Planck mass, characterize the loss of quantum coherences.