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Nature Research, Nature Communications, 1(2), 2011

DOI: 10.1038/ncomms1498

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Quantum interferometric visibility as a witness of general relativistic proper time

Journal article published in 2011 by Magdalena Zych, Fabio Costa, Igor Pikovski ORCID, Časlav Brukner, Caslav Brukner
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

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Abstract

Current attempts to probe general relativistic effects in quantum mechanics focus on precision measurements of phase shifts in matter-wave interferometry. Yet, phase shifts can always be explained as arising due to an Aharonov-Bohm effect, where a particle in a flat space-time is subject to an effective potential. Here we propose a novel quantum effect that cannot be explained without the general relativistic notion of proper time. We consider interference of a "clock" - a particle with evolving internal degrees of freedom - that will not only display a phase shift, but also reduce the visibility of the interference pattern. According to general relativity proper time flows at different rates in different regions of space-time. Therefore, due to quantum complementarity the visibility will drop to the extent to which the path information becomes available from reading out the proper time from the "clock". Such a gravitationally induced decoherence would provide the first test of the genuine general relativistic notion of proper time in quantum mechanics. ; Comment: 11 pages, 2 figures, 2 tables, published version