A superfluid He4 version of a test on QG vs CG: feasibility with demonstrated methods

TL;DR

This paper proposes a feasible tabletop experiment using superfluid He4 and SHeQUID interferometers to test the quantum nature of gravity through entanglement, leveraging macroscopic quantum phenomena.

Contribution

It introduces a novel scheme employing superfluid He4 and SHeQUIDs to investigate quantum gravity effects with existing technologies.

Findings

The proposed experiment is feasible with current methods.

Superfluid He4 can be used to create macroscopic quantum states for gravity tests.

No new technological developments are needed for implementation.

Abstract

A field, which mediates entanglement between two quantum systems, must be of quantum nature. Attempts to witness this way quantumlike features of the gravitational field with tabletop experiments are actively studied recently, in particular by considering to look at two masses in a superposition in two locations, each in one interferometer. Entanglement intervention is probed when the interferometers are put side by side. If the masses interact only via Newtonian attraction, and still some degree of entanglement is found, than the gravitational field must be quantum like, or at least non-classical. The masses considered are mesoscopic, 10-14 Kg to 10-12 Kg, and in one proposal Mach-Zehnder interferometry is considered. Liquid He4 is superfluid below 2.17 K, and shows macroscopic quantum behaviour, in particular matter interferometry, as in the Superfluid He Quantum Inteference Device - SHeQUID. With its Josephson junctions as slits, the SHeQUID parallels a Mach-Zehnder. In this case the matter quantities involved are macroscopic, 10-8 Kg. We propose and analize the feasibility of a scheme on the lines of the above, where the matter field is given by superfluid He4, and the Mach-Zehnder's are two SHeQUID, put side by side. We find that the proposed experiment is feasible, using only well demonstrated methods and technologies, with no need to extensions beyond the current frontiers.