12 research outputs found
Comments on Proposed Gravitational Modifications of Schrodinger Dynamics and their Experimental Implications
We discuss aspects of gravitational modifications of Schrodinger dynamics
proposed by Diosi and Penrose. We consider first the Diosi-Penrose criterion
for gravitationally induced state vector reduction, and compute the reduction
time expected for a superposition of a uniform density cubical solid in two
positions displaced by a small fraction of the cube side. We show that the
predicted effect is much smaller than would be observable in the proposed
Marshall et al. mirror experiment. We then consider the ``Schrodinger -Newton''
equation for an N-particle system. We show that in the independent particle
approximation, it differs from the usual Hartree approximation applied to the
Newtonian potential by self-interaction terms, which do not have a consistent
Born rule interpretation. This raises doubts about the use of the
Schrodinger-Newton equation to calculate gravitational effects on molecular
interference experiments. When the effects of Newtonian gravitation on
molecular diffraction are calculated using the standard many-body Schrodinger
equation, no washing out of the interference pattern is predicted.Comment: Tex, 17
Notes on Certain Newton Gravity Mechanisms of Wave Function Localisation and Decoherence
Both the additional non-linear term in the Schr\"odinger equation and the
additional non-Hamiltonian term in the von Neumann equation, proposed to ensure
localisation and decoherence of macro-objects, resp., contain the same
Newtonian interaction potential formally. We discuss certain aspects that are
common for both equations. In particular, we calculate the enhancement of the
proposed localisation and/or decoherence effects, which would take place if one
could lower the conventional length-cutoff and resolve the mass density on the
interatomic scale.Comment: 8pp LaTex, Submitted to J. Phys. A: Math-Gen, for the special issue
``The Quantum Universe'' in honor of G. C. Ghirard