dorsal/arxiv
View SchemaComments on Proposed Gravitational Modifications of Schrodinger Dynamics and their Experimental Implications
| Authors | Stephen L. Adler |
|---|---|
| Categories | |
| ArXiv ID | quant-ph/0610255 |
| URL | https://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0610255 |
| DOI | 10.1088/1751-8113/40/4/011 |
| Journal | J.Phys.A40:755-764,2007 |
Abstract
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.
{
"annotation_id": "1cedaba5-f2b3-4bca-8ec6-8b33b11bcbe4",
"date_created": "2026-03-02T18:02:30.563000Z",
"date_modified": "2026-03-02T18:02:30.563000Z",
"file_hash": "9874682653f155ddaa8d1fb3abd5e8ad3b664620d36ee46b96f81ed658805662",
"private": false,
"record": {
"abstract": "We discuss aspects of gravitational modifications of Schrodinger dynamics\nproposed by Diosi and Penrose. We consider first the Diosi-Penrose criterion\nfor gravitationally induced state vector reduction, and compute the reduction\ntime expected for a superposition of a uniform density cubical solid in two\npositions displaced by a small fraction of the cube side. We show that the\npredicted effect is much smaller than would be observable in the proposed\nMarshall et al. mirror experiment. We then consider the ``Schrodinger -Newton\u0027\u0027\nequation for an N-particle system. We show that in the independent particle\napproximation, it differs from the usual Hartree approximation applied to the\nNewtonian potential by self-interaction terms, which do not have a consistent\nBorn rule interpretation. This raises doubts about the use of the\nSchrodinger-Newton equation to calculate gravitational effects on molecular\ninterference experiments. When the effects of Newtonian gravitation on\nmolecular diffraction are calculated using the standard many-body Schrodinger\nequation, no washing out of the interference pattern is predicted.",
"arxiv_id": "quant-ph/0610255",
"authors": [
"Stephen L. Adler"
],
"categories": [
"quant-ph",
"gr-qc",
"hep-ph"
],
"doi": "10.1088/1751-8113/40/4/011",
"journal_ref": "J.Phys.A40:755-764,2007",
"title": "Comments on Proposed Gravitational Modifications of Schrodinger Dynamics and their Experimental Implications",
"url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0610255"
},
"schema_id": "dorsal/arxiv",
"source": {
"execution_id": "291636f1-6de8-4cd9-97a9-3177432f7352",
"id": "arXiv Dataset IDs",
"type": "Model",
"variant": "snapshot-2026-03-01",
"version": "0.1.0"
},
"user_id": 1000002
}