Decoherence induced by long wavelength gravitons

TL;DR

This paper explores how a background of long wavelength gravitons can cause decoherence in quantum systems through dephasing, providing explicit formulas and estimates for the decoherence rate.

Contribution

It introduces a model linking graviton-induced spacetime fluctuations to quantum decoherence and derives an explicit decoherence rate for long wavelength gravitons.

Findings

Decoherence rate depends on graviton wavelength and system size

Explicit formula for decoherence rate in the long wavelength limit

Estimates suggest potential significance in quantum systems

Abstract

We discuss how a background bath of gravitons can induce decoherence of quantum systems. The mechanism is dephasing, the loss of phase coherence due to quantum geometry fluctuations caused by the gravitons. This effect is illustrated in a simple analog model of quantum particles in a cavity whose walls undergo position fluctuations, and create the same effect expected from spacetime geometry fluctuations. We obtain an explicit result for the decoherence rate in the limit where the graviton wavelength is large compared to the size of the quantum system, and make some estimates for this rate.