Planckian bound on IR/UV mixing from cold-atom interferometry

TL;DR

This paper uses cold-atom interferometry to set bounds on IR/UV mixing effects predicted by quantum gravity theories, reaching near the Planck length scale and potentially explaining measurement discrepancies.

Contribution

It derives experimental bounds on IR/UV mixing corrections in quantum gravity from cold-atom interferometry data, linking theory with precision measurements.

Findings

Bounds on IR/UV mixing length scale reach the Planck length

IR/UV mixing could explain discrepancies in fine structure constant measurements

Results suggest a possible quantum gravity effect at half the Planck length

Abstract

IR/UV mixing (a mechanism causing ultraviolet quantum-gravity effects to manifest themselves also in a far-infrared regime) is a rare case of feature found in several approaches to the quantum-gravity problem. We here derive the implications for "soft" IR/UV mixing (corrections to the dispersion relation that are linear in momentum) of some recent cold-atom-interferometry measurements. For both signs of the IR/UV-mixing correction term we establish bounds on the characteristic length scale which reach the Planck-length milestone. Intriguingly, for values of the characteristic scale of about half the Planck length we find that IR/UV mixing provides a solution for a puzzling discrepancy between Cesium-based and Rubidium-based atom-interferometric measurements of the fine structure constant.