Bounding quantum gravity inspired decoherence using atom interferometry

Abstract

Hypothetical models have been proposed in which explicit collapse mechanisms prevent the superposition principle to hold at large scales. In particular, the model introduced by Ellis and co-workers [Phys. Lett. B ${\bf 221}$, 113 (1989)] suggests that quantum gravity might be responsible for the collapse of the wavefunction of massive objects in spatial superpositions. We here consider a recent experiment reporting on interferometry with atoms delocalized over half a meter for timescale of a second [Nature ${\bf 528}$, 530 (2015)] and show that the corresponding data strongly bound quantum gravity induced decoherence and rule it out in the parameter regime considered originally.