An international team of physicists, including Nobel Prize-winning Professor Sir Roger Penrose, has directly observed a long-predicted quantum effect of gravity. The experiment, led by researchers at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, the University of Ulm, and the University of Oxford, confirms that Einstein’s theory of gravity aligns with quantum behavior.
The research, published September 2 in *Science Advances*, explores the intersection of quantum mechanics and Einstein’s theory of gravity. Physicists measured changes in the quantum properties of atoms as they moved under gravity’s influence, finding the effect matched predictions based on Einstein’s equivalence principle extended to a quantum object. The equivalence principle states that gravity should effectively vanish locally for an observer in free fall, such as a person experiencing weightlessness in a falling lift.
Testing this principle with quantum objects has been challenging due to their wave-like behavior and ability to follow multiple paths simultaneously. To overcome this, the team developed the Quantum Galileo Interferometer. This instrument split the quantum wave of an atom into two paths—one held in place and the other allowed to fall freely—before reuniting them to measure gravity’s impact. The experiment utilized clouds of rubidium atoms cooled to just above absolute zero and manipulated near a specially designed atom chip at Ben-Gurion University. PhD student Or Dobkowski was part of the experimental team.
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