Proposal for a Quantum Test of the Weak Equivalence Principle with Entangled Atomic Species

TL;DR

This paper proposes a novel quantum experiment to test the Weak Equivalence Principle using entangled atomic species, potentially achieving high precision by leveraging quantum entanglement in gravity measurements.

Contribution

It introduces a new method to test the WEP with entangled atoms, differing from classical tests by involving quantum entanglement in the measurement process.

Findings

Potential accuracy below 10^{-7} on the Eötvös parameter.

Uses entangled $^{85}$Rb and $^{87}$Rb atoms in a novel interferometry setup.

Demonstrates feasibility of quantum-enhanced WEP tests.

Abstract

We propose an experiment to test the Weak Equivalence Principle (WEP) with a test mass consisting of two entangled atoms of different species. In the proposed experiment, a coherent measurement of the differential gravity acceleration between the two atomic species is considered, by entangling two atom interferometers operating on the two species. The entanglement between the two atoms is heralded at the initial beam splitter of the interferometers through the detection of a single photon emitted by either of the atoms, together with the impossibility of distinguishing which atom emitted the photon. In contrast to current and proposed tests of the WEP, our proposal explores the validity of the WEP in a regime where the two particles involved in the differential gravity acceleration measurement are not classically independent, but entangled. We propose an experimental implementation using $^{85}$Rb and $^{87}$Rb atoms entangled by a vacuum stimulated rapid adiabatic passage protocol implemented in a high finesse optical cavity. We show that an accuracy below $10^{-7}$ on the E\"otv\"os parameter can be achieved.