Marshman, Ryan J;
(2022)
Large Mass Interferometry for Understanding and Measuring Aspects of Gravity.
Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).
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Abstract
This thesis presents my work on exploring the use of large mass Stern-Gerlach interferometry for measuring both classical and quantum mechanical aspects of gravity. Chapter 1 serves as an introduction of the background physics necessary to understand this thesis. Part I (Chapters 2 and 3) is concerned with the underlying quantum mechanical mechanism behind a previously proposed experiment aimed at evidencing the quantum nature of gravity by witnessing gravitationally mediated entanglement. This includes determining the assumptions which must hold for a conclusion to be drawn from a positive result of the experiment and providing a clear and intuitive understanding behind what can and what can not be proved by such an experiment. Finally, this section presents the work done to explore further how entanglement forms in gravitationally interacting quantum systems. Part II of this thesis (Chapters4 and 5) discusses how a large mass interferometer will couple to the space-time metric for use as a detector. This includes considering the basic design of such a device, how different components of the space-time metric can be identified individually and an initial exploration of the final sensitivity of such a device given realistic noise parameters. Part III (Chapter 6) of this thesis looks at how such devices may be implemented experimentally, building off previous designs to create a large mass, large spatial superpositions with sufficient coherence to enable their use for interferometry. This is done to specifically design the interferometer around some issues and limitations with large mass interferometry using the Stern-Gerlach effect which have not been considered elsewhere.
| Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Qualification: | Ph.D |
| Title: | Large Mass Interferometry for Understanding and Measuring Aspects of Gravity |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © The Author 2022. Original content in this thesis is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). Any third-party copyright material present remains the property of its respective owner(s) and is licensed under its existing terms. Access may initially be restricted at the author’s request. |
| UCL classification: | UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences > Dept of Physics and Astronomy UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL |
| URI: | https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10148280 |
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