Relativity Seminar
of the Institute of Theoretical Physics


Seminar is held on Tuesdays at 13:10 pm in the lecture room of the Institute
on the 10th floor of the department building at Trója, V Holešovičkách 2, Prague 8


March 19, 2024
Quantum superpositions of black holes
Prof. Robert Mann
Department of Physics, University of Waterloo, Ontario

If relativistic gravitation has a quantum description, it must be meaningful to consider a spacetime metric in a genuine quantum superposition. But how might such a superposition be described, and how could observers detect it? I will present a new operational framework for studying "superpositions of spacetimes" via model particle detectors. After presenting the general approach, I show how it can be applied to describe a spacetime generated that is a superposition of two expanding spacetimes. I will then move on to show how black holes in two spatial dimensions can be placed in a superposition of masses and how such detectors would respond. The response exhibits signatures of quantum-gravitational effects reminiscent of Bekenstein’s seminal conjecture concerning the quantized mass spectrum of black holes in quantum gravity. I will provide further remarks concerning the meaning of the spacetime metric, and on distinguishing spacetime superpositions that are genuinely quantum-gravitational, notably with reference to recent proposals to test gravitationally-induced entanglement.


Jiří Bičák                                                                                                  Oldřich Semerák