Quantum accelerometer: distinguishing inertial Bob from his accelerated twin Rob by a local measurement

Abstract

Single quantum system, such as Unruh-DeWitt detector, can be used to determine absolute acceleration by local measurements on a quantum field. To show this, we consider two kinematically indistinguishable scenarios: an inertial observer, Bob, measuring the field of an uniformly accelerated cavity, and his non-inertial twin Rob accelerating and making measurements in a stationary cavity. We find that these scenarios can be distinguished in the non-relativistic regime only by measurements on highly excited massive fields, allowing one to detect non-inertialness of the reference frame.