Looking at quantum gravity in a mirror
Sunday, March 18, 2012 - 13:00
in Physics & Chemistry
Einstein's theory of gravity and quantum physics are expected to merge at the Planck-scale of extremely high energies and on very short distances. At this scale, new phenomena could arise. However, the Planck-scale is so remote from current experimental capabilities that tests of quantum gravity are widely believed to be nearly impossible. Now an international collaboration between the groups of Caslav Brukner and Markus Aspelmeyer at the University of Vienna and Myungshik Kim at Imperial College London has proposed a new quantum experiment using Planck-mass mirrors. Such an experiment could test certain predictions made by quantum gravity proposals in the laboratory. The findings will be published this week in Nature Physics.