Description |
The theory of quantum mechanics, despite being highly successful, is plagued with
foundational issues such as the “measurement problem”. Understanding the process of
“measurement” and the random collapse of the wavefunctions from a more profound
perspective than the standard Copenhagen picture have been one of the major aims in
foundational quantum mechanics. Possibilities that the wavefunction collapse is a
manifestation of the non-standard coupling of the quantum particles with the background
gravitational field have also been explored in this context. In this talk, I will focus on one
such proposal called the “Schrodinger-Newton scheme” in the semi-classical theory of
gravity. This theory deals with the effect of self-gravity of a quantum particle on its
wavefunction evolution leading to a spontaneous collapse. However, this is a deterministic
theory and in order to account for the random outcomes one has to introduce stochasticity
in the evolution equation. I will discuss possible ways to introduce stochasticity in the
dynamics by considering separately an external stochastic gravity background and by taking
into account the higher order fluctuation terms to the Schrodinger-Newton equation itself. I
will derive the “decoherence time” in these two cases and show that they match with the
previously known “Diosi-Penrose” criterion, which might be an indication of a universal
scale at which the interplay of gravity and quantum mechanics becomes important. Lastly, I
will briefly talk about scenarios where such effects can be experimentally detected.
|