Amplification of gravitational motion via quantum weak measurement. (28th April 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Kawana, Kiyoharu; Ueda, Daiki
• Is Part Of: Progress of theoretical and experimental physics. Volume 2019:Number 4(2019)
• Publication Date: 2019-04-28
• Subjects: A60 -- C44 -- C50; Physics -- Periodicals; Mathematical physics -- Periodicals; 530.05
• DOI: 10.1093/ptep/ptz019
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2050-3911

Abstract

Abstract: We investigate a new experimental possibility of measuring the Newtonian gravitational constant $G$ by using weak measurement. Amplification via weak measurement is an interesting phenomenon of quantum mechanics. In this letter, we consider it in a system consisting of many cold atoms that are gravitationally interacting with an external macroscopic source and show that it is possible to obtain ${\cal{O}}(10^{3})$ amplification of their relative motion compared with the classical motion when the number of atoms is ${\cal{O}}(10^{15})$ and the observing time is $\sim 0.5$ s. This result suggests that it might be possible to use this system as a new experimental setup for determining $G$ . In addition, our study indicates that the gravitational force can behave as a repulsive force because of the weak measurement.