Crucial tests of macrorealist and semi-classical gravity models with freely falling mesoscopic nanospheres

Abstract

Recently, several proposals have been made to test the quantum superposition principle in the mesoscopic regime. Most of these tests consist of a careful measurement of the loss of interference due to decoherence. Here we consider, instead, the spread in position of a freely falling nanosphere. We study in depth the dependence of this spread on self-gravity in the presence of decoherence (exotic and non-exotic). We show that the influence of self-gravity is robust in the presence of weak decoherence, and quantify this robustness by introducing a new parameter, the critical decoherence, aimed at estimating the critical value above which self-gravity is overwhelmed by decoherence. We also emphasise the crucial role played by the spread of the initial wave packet for the sensitivity of free-fall experiments to decoherence.

Abridged and modified version accepted for publication in Physical Review A. 17 pages, 6 figures