Gravitational time dilation in quantum clock interferometry with entangled multi-photon states and quantum memories

TL;DR

This paper proposes a quantum interferometry scheme using entangled multi-photon states and quantum memories to observe gravitational time dilation effects, demonstrating potential for near-term laboratory experiments.

Contribution

It introduces a novel memory-assisted quantum clock interferometer with entangled photons, amplifying gravitational effects and analyzing realistic experimental regimes.

Findings

Proper-time phase amplification scales with photon number N

Collapse of interference occurs for height differences of 10-100 meters

Feasible with current quantum memory technologies and optical setups

Abstract

Gravitational time dilation implies that clocks held at different heights accumulate different proper times. We analyze a memory-assisted quantum clock interferometer in which a frequency-bin photonic clock is stored in two vertically separated quantum memories for a controllable duration, such that the joint state evolves in a quantum superposition of two proper times. After retrieval, the photonic modes interfere in a Hong-Ou-Mandel (HOM) interferometer, for which we derive analytic expressions for the resulting multiphoton detection statistics. Extending this HOM-based scheme from entangled photon pairs to frequency-entangled 2N-photon inputs, we show that the proper-time dependent phase is amplified by a factor N, leading to an N-times faster collapse and revival of the interference signal compared with the two-photon case. Incorporating finite memory efficiency and lifetime, we identify regimes where this modulation remains observable. For parameters compatible with demonstrated Rb and Cs memories and achievable optical frequency separations, the first collapse occurs for height differences in the order of 10-100 m with subsecond to few-second storage times, while suitable rare-earth ion and alkali memory combinations can reduce the required height to the few-metre scale. These results establish near-term laboratory conditions for observing entanglement dynamics driven by gravitational time dilation in a photonic platform.