On the quantum analogue of Galileo's leaning tower experiment

DOI10.1088/0264-9381/23/22/024zbMATH Open1133.81300arXivquant-ph/0606183OpenAlexW2042847537MaRDI QIDQ3418952FDOQ3418952

Dipankar Home, Md Manirul Ali, A. S. Majumdar, A. K. Pan

Publication date: 5 February 2007

Published in: Classical and Quantum Gravity (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: The quantum analogue of Galileo's leaning tower experiment is revisited using wave packets evolving under the gravitational potential. We first calculate the position detection probabilities for particles projected upwards against gravity around the classical turning point and also around the point of initial projection, which exhibit mass dependence at both these points. We then compute the mean arrival time of freely falling particles using the quantum probability current, which also turns out to be mass dependent. The mass dependence of both the position detection probabilities and the mean arrival time vanish in the limit of large mass. Thus, compatibility between the weak equivalence principle and quantum mechanics is recovered in the macroscopic limit of the latter.

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0606183

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Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Gravitational interaction in quantum theory (81V17) Observational and experimental questions in relativity and gravitational theory (83B05) Experimental work for problems pertaining to quantum theory (81-05)

Cited In (6)

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