Gravity-wave interferometers as probes of a low-energy effective quantum gravity

TL;DR

This paper discusses how gravity-wave interferometers can be used to test quantum properties of space-time, providing detailed derivations, extending analysis to new scenarios, and establishing bounds on measurement precision relevant to quantum gravity theories.

Contribution

It offers a comprehensive analysis of interferometry-based tests for quantum space-time properties, including new results on space-time fuzziness and measurement bounds.

Findings

Extended analysis to broader space-time fuzziness scenarios

Derived an absolute bound on gravity wave amplitude measurability

Provided detailed derivations supporting quantum gravity experimental tests

Abstract

The interferometry-based experimental tests of quantum properties of space-time which the author sketched out in a recent short Letter [Nature 398 (1999) 216] are here discussed in self-contained fashion. Besides providing detailed derivations of the results already announced in the previous Letter, some new results are also derived; in particular, the analysis is extended to a larger class of scenarios for space-time fuzziness and an absolute bound on the measurability of the amplitude of a gravity wave is obtained. It is argued that these studies could be helpful for the search of a theory describing a first stage of partial unification of Gravity and Quantum Mechanics.