General Relativistic Decoherence with Applications to Dark Matter Detection

Area of Science:

• Quantum Physics
• Cosmology
• General Relativity

Background:

• Macroscopic quantum superpositions are fragile due to environmental interactions causing decoherence.
• Gravitational interactions, like those of dark matter (DM), may offer a pathway to reduced decoherence.

Purpose of the Study:

• To compute the decoherence rate of a quantum object interacting solely via gravity.
• To investigate quantum general relativistic effects on superposed metric oscillations.
• To analyze the decoherence of axion dark matter in different superposition states.

Main Methods:

• Quantum mechanics
• General relativity
• Decoherence rate computation
• Analysis of superposed metric oscillations
• Axion dark matter phase and spatial superpositions

Main Results:

• Decoherence is significantly slowed for systems interacting only gravitationally.
• Axion dark matter in a phase superposition within the Milky Way is robust against decoherence.
• Spatial superpositions of axion dark matter are not robust against decoherence.

Conclusions:

• Quantum effects in general relativity are computable and relevant for dark matter.
• The phase coherence of Milky Way dark matter suggests potential for novel direct detection strategies.
• Spatial decoherence challenges certain dark matter detection models.