Gravitational time dilation induced decoherence in spontaneous emission

Abstract

We investigate decoherence of quantum superpositions induced by gravitational time dilation and spontaneous emission between two atomic levels. It has been shown that gravitational time dilation can be a universal decoherence source by Pikovski et al. Here, we consider the decoherence induced by the gravitational time dilation only in the situation of spontaneous emission. We obtain the analytical results of the coherence of particle’s position state. Then, we obtain that the coherence of particle’s position state depends on reference frame because the time dilation changes the distinguishability of emitted photons from two positions of particle in different reference frames. For observing the decoherence effect induced by the gravitational time dilation, time-delayed feedback can be utilized to increase the decoherence of particle’s superposition state.