Abstract
I propose an experiment that may be performed, with present low temperature and cryogenic technology, to reveal Wheeler’s quantum foam. It involves coupling an optical photon’s momentum to the center of mass motion of a macroscopic transparent block with parameters such that the latter is displaced in space by approximately a Planck length. I argue that such displacement is sensitive to quantum foam and will react back on the photon’s probability of transiting the block. This might allow determination of the precise scale at which quantum fluctuations of space–time become large, and so differentiate between the brane-world and the traditional scenarios of spacetime.
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Acknowledgments
I thank the participants of the “Horizons of Quantum Physics” workshop in Taipei, in particular Wei-Tou Ni, Lajos Djosi and Thomas Jennewein, for useful criticism, and Al Schwartz for advice. The present account was prepared with support from the I-CORE Program of the Planning and Budgeting Committee and the Israel Science Foundation (Grant No. 1937/12), as well as from the Israel Science Foundation personal Grant No. 24/12.
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Bekenstein, J.D. Can Quantum Gravity be Exposed in the Laboratory?. Found Phys 44, 452–462 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10701-014-9779-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10701-014-9779-z