Skip to main navigation Skip to search Skip to main content

Gravitationally induced inhibitions of dispersion according to the Schrödinger-Newton equation

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleResearchpeer review

Abstract

We reconsider the time-dependent Schrödinger-Newton equation as a model for the self-gravitational interaction of a quantum system. We numerically locate the onset of gravitationally induced inhibitions of dispersion of Gaussian wave packets and find them to occur at mass values more than six orders of magnitude higher than reported by Salzman and Carlip (Salzman and Carlip 2006, arXiv:gr-qc/0606120, Carlip 2008 Class. Quantum Grav. 25 107-44), namely at about 1010 u. This fits much better to simple analytical estimates but unfortunately also questions the experimental realizability of the proposed laboratory test of quantum gravity in the foreseeable future, not just because of large masses, but also because of the need to provide sufficiently long coherence times.

Original languageEnglish
Article number195026
JournalClassical and quantum gravity
Volume28
Issue number19
E-pub ahead of print20 Sept 2011
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 7 Oct 2011

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Physics and Astronomy (miscellaneous)

Cite this