Testing Gravitationally-Induced-Entanglement with Massive Particles and Quantum Clocks

Abstract

We present an experimental proposal to test whether gravity can entangle a levitated particle with an array of quantum clocks. By harnessing the collective interaction between a micrometer-scale particle and an array of ultra-precise nuclear clocks, our scheme offers a conceivable path to observing gravitationally mediated entanglement with quantum clocks in the laboratory. Crucially, this setup will probe a genuinely relativistic effect one that requires the contribution of internal clock energy to active gravitational mass and cannot arise from the Newtonian interaction between fixed masses. Therefore, observing this entanglement would provide evidence for the quantised nature of active gravitational mass -- which has not been tested in any prior experiment -- rather than for spatial coherence of fixed masses,which is routinely tested in matterwave interferometers