Quantum Gravity Research, But A 1000x Smaller | Ivette Fuentes

Quick Overview

Physicist Ivette Fuentes is pioneering research into quantum gravity using tabletop experiments involving Bose-Einstein condensates, aiming to test theories like the Diósi-Penrose collapse model by probing how massive systems behave in quantum superposition, which contrasts with conventional gravitational wave detection using large apparatus like LIGO.

Key Points: Fuentes compares her approach in physics to her first love, dance, viewing physics as a 'dance between the fields' that led her to break conventional career paths. She is conducting groundbreaking work by proposing to detect gravitational waves using tabletop experiments based on Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs), an ultra-cold state of matter, contrasting with the 3 km arms of LIGO used for current detection methods. Fuentes found a key incompatibility between quantum mechanics (using Galilean transformations where time is absolute) and general relativity (using Lorentz transformations where time is relative). She was initially drawn to quantum mechanics and general relativity after abandoning classical physics, but later felt that mainstream approaches like string theory, with its many dimensions, were overly complicated, reminding her of Ptolemaic epicycles. Her current research focuses on testing the Diósi-Penrose conjecture, which posits that gravity collapses the wave function for massive systems, unlike massless particles like photons which can be entangled over vast distances. A Bose-Einstein condensate is an ultra-cold state where multiple boson atoms merge into a quantum state, becoming 'everywhere de-localized in the potential,' which Fuentes uses to study quantum gravity effects on these large, yet controllable, systems. Fuentes is actively collaborating with experimentalists, such as Chris Foot at Oxford, to produce the necessary 'squeezed states' within large BECs to test these gravitational collapse theories, which she is refining beyond the initial models proposed by Diósi and Penrose.