Pith. sign in

REVIEW 8 cited by

Quantum Mechanics of Gravitational Waves

Not yet reviewed by Pith; the record is open.

This paper has not been read by Pith yet. Machine review is queued; the pith claim, tier, and objections will appear here once it completes.

SPECIMEN: schema-true, not a live event

T0 review · schema-true

One-sentence machine reading of the paper's core claim.

pith:XXXXXXXX · record.json · timestamp

arxiv 2010.08205 v1 pith:QRV5EEA4 submitted 2020-10-16 hep-th gr-qc

classification hep-thgr-qc
keywords gravitationalfieldgravityquantumfallingnoisesubjectanalyzing
verification ladder T0 review T1 audit T2 compute T3 formal
0 comments
read the original abstract

For the purpose of analyzing observed phenomena, it has been convenient, and thus far sufficient, to regard gravity as subject to the deterministic principles of classical physics, with the gravitational field obeying Newton's law or Einstein's equations. Here we treat the gravitational field as a quantum field and determine the implications of such treatment for experimental observables. We find that falling bodies in gravity are subject to random fluctuations ("noise") whose characteristics depend on the quantum state of the gravitational field. We derive a stochastic equation for the separation of two falling particles. Detection of this fundamental noise, which may be measurable at gravitational wave detectors, would vindicate the quantization of gravity, and reveal important properties of its sources.

Discussion (0). Continue with ORCID to comment.

Forward citations

Cited by 8 Pith papers

Reviewed papers in the Pith corpus that reference this work. Sorted by Pith novelty score. Full citation record

  1. Suppressed Quantum Effects of Weakly Coupled Waves

    hep-ph 2026-07 conditional novelty 7.0 of 10

    Nonclassical (quantum) signatures of weakly coupled waves are suppressed by an extra power of the tiny conversion efficiency η (~10^-21 for axions, ~10^-33 for gravitons), so experiments cannot establish the quantizat...

  2. Gravitational waves decay in vacuum

    hep-ph 2026-07 conditional novelty 7.0 of 10

    Coherent graviton states that make up classical gravitational waves decay into photon pairs at a rate enhanced by N squared, a purely quantum effect that yields tiny rates for binaries and first photon-injection bound...

  3. Graviton-induced which-path decoherence in matter-wave interferometry

    gr-qc 2026-07 conditional novelty 6.0 of 10

    Radiative graviton decoherence in matter-wave interferometers is shown to be far below detection, even with strongly squeezed inflationary graviton states.

  4. Geometric noise spectrum in interferometers

    hep-th 2026-01 unverdicted novelty 6.0 of 10

    The noise spectrum an interferometer would see from quantum spacetime jitter is computed for vacuum, thermal, squeezed, and scalar-backreaction states; all are Planck-suppressed.

  5. Binary gravitational waves as probes of quantum graviton states

    gr-qc 2025-10 reject novelty 6.0 of 10

    Gravitational waves from binaries can, in principle, carry sub-Poissonian graviton statistics inherited from a squeezed primordial vacuum, offering a new signature of quantum gravity.

  6. Observer Time from Causality in Perturbative Quantum Gravity

    hep-th 2025-06 conditional novelty 5.0 of 10

    A lightbulb-and-mirror protocol defines diffeomorphism-invariant elapsed proper time, and its leading quantum gravity correction makes the time a noncommuting quantum operator.

  7. Intermittency in Quantum Graviton-Phonon Conversion

    gr-qc 2026-07 conditional novelty 4.0 of 10

    Exact rotating-wave treatment of graviton-phonon conversion restores unitarity and predicts intermittent bursts for coherent states and suppression for squeezed states.

  8. Toward graviton detection via photon-graviton quantum state conversion

    quant-ph 2025-07 conditional novelty 4.0 of 10

    Photon-to-graviton conversion in a magnetic field is shown to be enhanced by squeezed photon states and by the squeezed vacuum of primordial gravitational waves, with entanglement generation proposed as a quantum signature.

Pith tools