A FRESH clash between Einstein鈥檚 general theory of relativity and quantum
mechanics has come to light. A physicist in New Mexico claims that quantum
mechanics predicts that particles on Earth are affected by massive objects
millions of light years away. If he is right, one of the basic assumptions of
Einstein鈥檚 theory must be wrong.
A central premise of general relativity is that you cannot tell the
difference between being in free fall towards a massive object and being in no
gravitational field at all. Someone sitting in a capsule which is falling
towards a shell of matter would feel exactly the same as someone inside that
shell, where the gravitational forces balance out to zero. Neither would feel
themselves pressing down on their seats.
In other words, objects are indifferent to their gravitational 鈥減otential鈥�:
how tightly bound they are to a gravitational body. 鈥淚f you look at the
foundations of general relativity, it鈥檚 strongly dependent on this notion of
free fall,鈥� says Dharam Ahluwalia, a physicist at Los Alamos National
Laboratory.
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But Ahluwalia says that quantum mechanics may soon demolish the idea that
objects cannot sense their potential. Quantum mechanics has already overturned a
good deal of classical theory, such as the laws of electromagnetism. Before
quantum theory, physicists thought that an electron shooting past an ideal
solenoid鈥攁 tube which has magnetic fields on the inside but not on the
outside鈥攚ould be unaffected by the field. But because of the 鈥渟meariness鈥�
of real electrons, they are affected by a field they shouldn鈥檛 be able to
鈥渟别别鈥�.
Ahluwalia put gravity into the Schr枚dinger equation, which is normally
used to describe the quantum behaviour of a particle in different
electromagnetic potentials. He found there is a gravitational analogue of the
solenoid effect: particles can 鈥渇eel鈥� their gravitational potential.
In a forthcoming issue of Modern Physics Letters B, Ahluwalia says
that this effect would influence the way neutrinos flip from one type to
another. 快猫短视频s reported evidence for this behaviour last week
(see p 25).
Ahluwalia says neutrinos with mass would 鈥渇eel鈥� their gravitational potential,
and one with a large potential at the centre of a shell would change from one
neutrino 鈥渇lavour鈥� to another more slowly than one in free fall a large distance
away.
鈥淧ersonally, I believe it must be true,鈥� says Samuel Werner of the University
of Missouri in Columbia, who is hoping to see similar effects at work in
electrons at the centre of a tube filled with a tonne of mercury. 鈥淚n principle,
it could be observed.鈥�
If confirmed, the new idea would imply there are tiny inaccuracies in some
predictions of general relativity theory. It would also suggest that distant
galaxies affect the properties of nearby particles by contributing enormous
potential. The black hole at the centre of the Milky Way and the galaxies and
dark matter that make up the 鈥淕reat Attractor鈥� which is pulling on our Galaxy
would both change how quickly neutrinos oscillate near the Earth.
