Witnessing entanglement between photon and matter due to graviton exchange

TL;DR

This paper proposes a scheme to detect quantum gravity-induced entanglement between a spin qubit and photons using a PPT witness, providing a potential experimental signature of quantum gravity.

Contribution

It introduces a novel witness criterion based on PPT to identify entanglement caused by quantum gravity between matter and photons.

Findings

The witness detects entanglement with a maximal negativity of -0.052.

It identifies quantum correlations when the overlap |b3| is between 0.71 and 1.

The scheme utilizes Stokes parameters and phase-controlled local oscillators for measurement.

Abstract

The paper presents a scheme to detect entanglement arising from the quantum nature of gravity between a spin qubit and photons, using Stokes parameters. One of the crucial tests of the general theory of relativity is the bending of light due to the curvature. Recently, a quantum counterpart of this experiment to test the quantum nature of the gravitational interaction has been proposed, in which the spin-2, massless graviton yields entanglement between matter and a photon sector. Hence, it provides one of the most crucial experimental signatures for testing the quantum nature of gravity in a lab, since only spin-2-induced entanglement can yield the correct deflection of light due to matter. Here, we propose a positive partial-transpose (PPT) witness criterion for witnessing such an entanglement. We scan the entangled states in this context by studying the overlap of the final state, which is proportional to the entanglement phase. We exploit the Stokes observables to measure the photon state and the spins in the matter sector, thereby constructing a witness for the quantum nature of gravity in this setup. To quantify this entanglement, we will couple the photon to a local oscillator, whose phase need to be controlled to probe the orthogonal components of the macroscopic interference in the laser beam. We have shown that for a non-maximally entangled state mediated by the quantum nature of gravity, the witness attains a maximal negativity of $-0.052$. Our findings indicate that this witness effectively detects entanglement within the range $0.71 \leq |\gamma| < 1$, where $\gamma$ is the overlap between the two coherent states of the photon, providing a clear signature of quantum correlations.