Quantum Response of a Harmonically Trapped Detector to Classical and Non-classical Gravitational Fields

Abstract

In this work, we study the response of a detector confined in a harmonic oscillator potential when interacting with classical and quantum gravitational fields. The detector response is characterized through transition probabilities between its energy levels, with the aim of investigating how non-classical properties of the gravitational field affect the detector dynamics. The quantum states of the gravitational field considered include coherent states and squeezed states. Our results show that the influence of the gravitational field on the detector transition probabilities is encoded in the two-time correlation function of the field. For coherent states, the structure of this two-time correlation function can be reproduced by an appropriately modeled classical gravitational field, particularly when the classical field is stationary. In contrast, for squeezed states, the two-time correlation function contains additional contributions that cannot be replicated within a classical description when the classical field is stationary, leading to a non-linear time dependence of the detector transition probabilities.