Pith. sign in

REVIEW 2 cited by

Quantum superposition of spacetimes obeys Einstein's Equivalence Principle

Not yet reviewed by Pith; the record is open.

This paper has not been read by Pith yet. Machine review is queued; the pith claim, tier, and objections will appear here once it completes.

SPECIMEN: schema-true, not a live event

T0 review · schema-true

One-sentence machine reading of the paper's core claim.

pith:XXXXXXXX · record.json · timestamp

arxiv 2109.01405 v2 pith:R23EA2UA submitted 2021-09-03 quant-ph gr-qc

Quantum superposition of spacetimes obeys Einstein's Equivalence Principle

classification quant-ph gr-qc
keywords principlequantumsuperpositionequivalencegeneralreferenceeinsteinformulation
verification ladder T0 review T1 audit T2 compute T3 formal T4 reserved
0 comments
read the original abstract

We challenge the view that there is a basic conflict between the fundamental principles of Quantum Theory and General Relativity, and in particular the fact that a superposition of massive bodies would lead to a violation of the Equivalence Principle. It has been argued that this violation implies that such a superposition must inevitably spontaneously collapse (like in the Di\'osi-Penrose model). We identify the origin of such an assertion in the impossibility of finding a local, classical reference frame in which Einstein's Equivalence Principle would hold. In contrast, we argue that the formulation of the Equivalence Principle can be generalised so that it holds for reference frames that are associated to quantum systems in a superposition of spacetimes. The core of this new formulation is the introduction of a quantum diffeomorphism to such Quantum Reference Frames (QRFs). This procedure reconciles the principle of linear superposition in Quantum Theory with the principle of general covariance and the Equivalence Principle of General Relativity. Hence, it is not necessary to invoke a gravity-induced spontaneous state reduction when a massive body is prepared in a spatial superposition.

discussion (0)

Sign in with ORCID, Apple, or X to comment. Anyone can read and Pith papers without signing in.

Forward citations

Cited by 2 Pith papers

Reviewed papers in the Pith corpus that reference this work. Sorted by Pith novelty score.

  1. How many degrees of freedom describe a quantum N-particle state?

    quant-ph 2026-07 conditional novelty 7.0

    For closed quantum N-particle systems all 3N canonical degrees of freedom are physical; the frame degrees of freedom that relational models discard reappear as non-Heisenberg terms in generalised uncertainty relations...

  2. Quantum Reference Fields Transformations in Linearized Quantum Gravity

    gr-qc 2026-06 unverdicted novelty 7.0

    Extends quantum reference frames to quantum reference fields in linearized quantum gravity and derives unitary maps implementing relational gauge-invariant observables between quantum perspectives.