Schemes of gravitationally induced decoherence are being actively investigated as possible mechanisms for the quantum-to-classical transition. Here, we introduce a decoherence process due to quantum gravity effects. We assume a foamy quantum spacetime with a fluctuating minimal length coinciding on average with the Planck scale. Considering deformed canonical commutation relations with a fluctuating deformation parameter, we derive a Lindblad master equation that yields localization in energy space and decoherence times consistent with the currently available observational evidence. Compared to other schemes of gravitational decoherence, we find that the decoherence rate predicted by our model is extremal, being minimal in the deep quantum regime below the Planck scale and maximal in the mesoscopic regime beyond it. We discuss possible experimental tests of our model based on cavity optomechanics setups with ultracold massive molecular oscillators and we provide preliminary estimates on the values of the physical parameters needed for actual laboratory implementations.
Invariance under local unitary operations is a fundamental property that must be obeyed by every proper measure of quantum entanglement. However, this is not the only aspect of entanglement theory where local unitary operations play a relevant role. In the present work we show that the application of suitable local unitary operations defines a family of bipartite entanglement monotones, collectively referred to as ``mirror entanglement.'' They are constructed by first considering the (squared) Hilbert-Schmidt distance of the state from the set of states obtained by applying to it a given local unitary operator. To the action of each different local unitary operator there corresponds a different distance. We then minimize these distances over the sets of local unitary operations with different spectra, obtaining an entire family of different entanglement monotones. We show that these mirror-entanglement monotones are organized in a hierarchical structure, and we establish the conditions that need to be imposed on the spectrum of a local unitary operator for the associated mirror entanglement to be faithful, i.e., to vanish in and only in separable pure states. We analyze in detail the properties of one particularly relevant member of the family, the ``stellar mirror entanglement'' associated with the traceless local unitary operations with nondegenerate spectra and equispaced eigenvalues in the complex plane. This particular measure generalizes the original analysis of S. M. Giampaolo and F. Illuminati [Phys. Rev. A 76, 042301 (2007)], valid for qubits and qutrits. We prove that the stellar entanglement is a faithful bipartite entanglement monotone in any dimension and that it is bounded from below by a function proportional to the linear entropy and from above by the linear entropy itself, coinciding with it in two- and three-dimensional spaces.
We investigate Leggett-Garg inequalities for neutrino oscillations in the quantum field theoretical setting. We derive an exact flavor-mass uncertainty relation and prove that this uncertainty product yields an upper bound to the violation of the inequalities. The relation between temporal nonclassicality and quantum uncertainty realizes the Lüders upper bound to the violation of the Leggett-Garg inequalities in quantum field theory, analogous to the Tsirelson upper bound to the violation of the Bell inequalities. By studying the problem both in the exact field-theoretical setting and in the limiting quantum mechanical approximation, we show that on average the inequalities are violated more often and more strongly in quantum field theory than in quantum mechanics.
We consider two necessary and sufficient conditions for macrorealism recently appeared in the literature, known as no-signaling-in-time and arrow-of-time c
Different approaches to quantum gravity converge in predicting the existence of a minimal scale of length. This raises the fundamental question as to whether and how an intrinsic limit to spatial resolution can affect quantum mechanical observables associated to internal degrees of freedom. We answer this question in general terms by showing that the spin operator acquires a momentum-dependent contribution in quantum mechanics equipped with a minimal length. Among other consequences, this modification induces a form of quantum nonlocality stronger than the one arising in ordinary quantum mechanics. In particular, we show that violations of the Bell inequality can exceed the maximum value allowed in ordinary quantum mechanics, the so-called Tsirelson bound, by a positive-valued function of the momentum operator. We introduce possible experimental settings based on neutron interferometry and quantum contextuality, and we provide preliminary estimates on the values of the physical parameters needed for actual laboratory implementations.
Identifying entanglement-based order parameters characterizing topological systems, in particular topological superconductors and topological insulators, has remained a major challenge for the physics of quantum matter in the last two decades. Here we show that the end-to-end, long-distance, bipartite squashed entanglement between the edges of a many-body system, defined in terms of the edge-to-edge quantum conditional mutual information, is the natural nonlocal order parameter for topological superconductors in one dimension as well as in quasi-one-dimensional geometries. For the Kitaev chain in the entire topological phase, the edge squashed entanglement is quantized to , half the maximal Bell-state entanglement, and vanishes in the trivial phase. Such a topological squashed entanglement exhibits the correct scaling at the quantum phase transition, is stable in the presence of interactions, and is robust against disorder and local perturbations. Edge quantum conditional mutual information and edge squashed entanglement defined with respect to different multipartitions discriminate topological superconductors from symmetry breaking magnets, as shown by comparing the fermionic Kitaev chain and the spin-1/2 Ising model in transverse field. For systems featuring multiple topological phases with different numbers of edge modes, like the quasi-1D Kitaev ladder, topological squashed entanglement counts the number of Majorana excitations and distinguishes the different topological phases of the system. In fact, we show that the edge quantum conditional mutual information and the edge squashed entanglement remain valid detectors of topological superconductivity even for systems, like the Kitaev tie with long-range hopping, featuring geometrical frustration and a suppressed bulk-edge correspondence.