Can we detect the quantum nature of weak gravitational fields?

TL;DR

This paper explores the potential for experimental detection of quantum features in weak gravitational fields, emphasizing tabletop and interferometric experiments as avenues to test gravity's quantum nature.

Contribution

It reviews and investigates phenomenological approaches to detecting quantum signatures of gravity in laboratory-scale experiments and interferometers.

Findings

Quantum signatures may be detectable in tabletop experiments.

Interferometers could reveal quantum aspects of weak gravitational fields.

Experimental evidence could determine whether gravity is fundamentally quantum.

Abstract

A theoretical framework for the quantization of gravity has been an elusive Holy Grail since the birth of quantum theory and general relativity. While generations of scientists have attempted solutions to this deep riddle, an alternative path built upon the idea that experimental evidence could determine whether gravity is quantized has been decades in the making. The possibility of an experimental answer to the question of the quantization of gravity is of renewed interest in the era of gravitational wave detectors. We review and investigate an important subset of phenomenological quantum gravity, detecting quantum signatures of weak gravitational fields in table-top experiments and interferometers.