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Toward quantum gravity measurement by cold atoms

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 February 2013

MARCILIO M. DOS SANTOS,
TEODORA ONIGA,
ANDREW S. MCLEMAN,
MARTIN CALDWELL and
CHARLES H.-T. WANG
MARCILIO M. DOS SANTOS
Affiliation:
SUPA, Department of Physics, King's College, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen AB24 3UE, UK (c.wang@abdn.ac.uk)STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Chilton, Didcot, Oxon OX11 0QX, UK
TEODORA ONIGA
Affiliation:
SUPA, Department of Physics, King's College, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen AB24 3UE, UK (c.wang@abdn.ac.uk)
ANDREW S. MCLEMAN
Affiliation:
SUPA, Department of Physics, King's College, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen AB24 3UE, UK (c.wang@abdn.ac.uk)
MARTIN CALDWELL
Affiliation:
STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Chilton, Didcot, Oxon OX11 0QX, UK
CHARLES H.-T. WANG
Affiliation:
SUPA, Department of Physics, King's College, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen AB24 3UE, UK (c.wang@abdn.ac.uk)STFC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Chilton, Didcot, Oxon OX11 0QX, UK
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Abstract

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We propose an experiment for the measurement of gravitational effect on cold atoms by applying a one-dimensional vertically sinusoidal oscillation to the magneto-optical trap, and observe the signature of low quantum energy shift of quantum-bound states as a consequence of gravitational fluctuation. To this end, we present brief details of the experiment on a Bose–Einstein condensate (BEC), and a simplistic calculation of the Gross–Pitaevskii solution using the Thomas–Fermi approximation with focus on the density of the BEC for the time-dependent perturbation. Moreover, we calculate the power induced by quantum gravity on a generic atomic ensemble. We also address the possible challenges for the measurement of the expected results. Finally, we discuss the prospect of further developing this experiment toward measuring the effect of quantum spacetime fluctuations on cold atoms.

References

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