Speaker
Description
We present a novel tabletop approach to testing fundamental gravitational physics using quantum phononic excitations in a trapped Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC). The setup exploits the unique sensitivity of a BEC to the two leading contributions to the gravitational potential in $\Lambda$-gravity, namely the Newtonian $GM/r$ term and the cosmological constant contribution $\Lambda r^2$, which together form the most general static potential consistent with Gurzadyan's theorem.
The gravitational signal is induced by an oscillating source mass, generating controlled fluctuations of the gravitational potential that couple to collective phonon modes of the condensate. The sensitivity of the detector can be enhanced by approximately two orders of magnitude through a tritter operation, which coherently mixes phononic excitations with the BEC ground state and constitutes a genuine quantum-information element of the measurement strategy.
Using state-of-the-art experimental parameters, we show that this setup allows for precision measurements of the gravitational constant $G$ well beyond current tabletop experiments, while simultaneously providing the strongest laboratory-based constraints on the cosmological constant $\Lambda$. In addition, the distance dependence of the measured signal enables direct tests of modified gravity scenarios within a fully controlled quantum system.
Based on arXiv:2409.19755 [Phys.Rev.Res. 7 (2025) 4, L042051]
| I read the instructions above | Yes |
|---|