Nonclassical effects in geodesic motion

Abstract

Gravity gradient is known as a serious systematic effect in atomic tests of the universality of free fall, where the initial central position and velocity of atoms need to be exactly controlled. In this paper, we study quantum free fall with high-order gravity gradients. It is shown that the cubic terms in the Newtonian potential shall generate a new phase shift in atom interferometers, which depends on the position and velocity uncertainties of the incident atoms. We further investigate the nonclassicality of free fall and show that, due to the cubic potential, the gravitational Wigner equation in phase space of position and velocity is different from the classical Liouville equation. There exists a mass-dependent correction in the dynamical equation regardless of initial state. Nevertheless, this is just a quantum mechanical effect of microparticles, which does not violate equivalence principle that inertia mass is equal to the gravitational mass.