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arxiv: 1612.07331 · v2 · pith:X6K7NISCnew · submitted 2016-12-21 · 🌀 gr-qc · quant-ph

Can quantum probes satisfy the weak equivalence principle?

classification 🌀 gr-qc quant-ph
keywords quantumfieldformulationprobesequivalencegravitationalinformationmass
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We address the question whether quantum probes in a gravitational field can be considered as test particles obeying the weak equivalence principle (WEP). A formulation of the WEP is proposed which applies also in the quantum regime, while maintaining the physical content of its classical counterpart. Such formulation requires the introduction of a gravitational field not to modify the Fisher information about the mass of a freely-falling probe, extractable through measurements of its position. We discover that, while in a uniform field quantum probes satisfy our formulation of the WEP exactly, gravity gradients can encode nontrivial information about the particle's mass in its wavefunction, leading to violations of the WEP.

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