Speaker
Prof.
Philip Stamp
(UBC)
Description
It is argued that gravity should cause a breakdown of quantum mechanics, at low energies, accessible in principle to table-top experiments. I show
that one can formulate a theory of quantum gravity in which gravitational
correlations exist between worldline or worldsheet paths, for the particle
or field of interest. Using a generalized equivalence principle, one can
give a unique form for the correlators, yielding a theory with no adjustable parameters. Quantitative calculations are carried out in a background field
effective theory, applicable to all energies of experimental interest. A key
feature of the theory is the "bunching" of quantum trajectories caused by the gravitational correlations - this is NOT a decoherence or a "collapse"
mechanism. This bunching causes a very rapid breakdown of the superposition principle for energies above 8 orders of magnitude below the Planck mass. In table-top experiments, large slow-moving masses also exhibit this effect, which suppresses all coherence and entanglement phenomena.
Author
Prof.
Philip Stamp
(UBC)
