Quantumness of relic gravitons

TL;DR

This paper establishes a fundamental frequency limit for relic gravitons based on their quantum entanglement, suggesting that detecting gravitons in the MHz to THz range could reveal their macroscopic quantum nature.

Contribution

It derives a universal upper frequency bound for relic gravitons rooted in their quantum entanglement properties, independent of specific cosmological models.

Findings

Maximal frequency limit in the THz domain for relic gravitons.

Detection in MHz to THz range could indicate macroscopic quantum states.

The entropy of gravitons is comparable to the cosmic microwave background entropy.

Abstract

Since the relic gravitons are produced in entangled states of opposite (comoving) three-momenta, their distributions and their averaged multiplicities must determine the maximal frequency of the spectrum above which the created pairs are exponentially suppressed. The absolute upper bound on the maximal frequency derived in this manner coincides with the THz domain and does not rely on the details of the cosmological scenario. The THz limit also translates into a constraint of the order of $10^{-33}$ on the minimal chirp amplitudes that should be effectively reached by all classes of hypothetical detectors aiming at the direct scrutiny of a signal in the frequency domain that encompasses the MHz and the GHz bands. The obtained high-frequency limit is deeply rooted in the quantumness of the produced gravitons whose multiparticle final sates are macroscopic but always non-classical. Since the unitary evolution preserves their coherence, the quantumness of the gravitons can be associated with an entanglement entropy that is associated with the loss of the complete information on the underlying quantum field. It turns out that the reduction of the density matrix in different bases leads to the same Von Neumann entropy whose integral over all the modes of the spectrum is dominated by the maximal frequency. Thanks to the THz bound the total integrated entropy of the gravitons can be comparable with the cosmic microwave background entropy but not larger. Besides the well known cosmological implications, we then suggest that a potential detection of gravitons between the MHz and the THz may therefore represent a direct evidence of macroscopic quantum states associated with the gravitational field.