Observation of quantum free fall and the consistency with the equivalence principle · HackerPapers discussions

Observation of quantum free fall and the consistency with the equivalence principle — mentioned by traes

Tue, 08 Sep 2026 05:46:38 GMT

No. From the paper linked above [0]: > The phase of free fall is predicted in a purely quantum manner to have a dependence m/6 g^2T^3/ℏ + gmzT on the free-fall time T, where m is the mass of the object, g is the gravitational acceleration relative to the surface of Earth, and z in the spatial coordinate in the direction of gravity. This prediction follows the calculated phase accumulated by an object accelerating in a linear potential, and has been made starting from almost one hundred years ago by Darwin, Kennard and others. Apparently the phase shift is derivable from just adding a linear…

Paper and discussion history. A mention is not an endorsement.

Observation of quantum free fall and the consistency with the equivalence principle — mentioned by MathMonkeyMan

Mon, 07 Sep 2026 22:13:25 GMT

Here's the [paper][1] on the arxiv. I found it hard to believe that they accounted for other forces precisely enough that they could attribute the phase change to gravity, but this is beyond me so I trust the result. At first I thought "they showed that you can measure a particle falling in gravity," which seemed dumb because we already know that particles fall in gravity. But they showed that you can measure a single (aggregate) particle falling in gravity, which is pretty cool because if gravity is quantum then that means that they observed an interaction between the graviton and their…

Paper and discussion history. A mention is not an endorsement.