Particle detectors, cavities, and the weak equivalence principle

Abstract

We analyze a quantum version of the weak equivalence principle, in which we compare the response of a static particle detector crossed by an accelerated cavity with the response of an accelerated detector crossing a static cavity in (1+1)-dimensional flat spacetime. We show, for both massive and massless scalar fields, that the non-locality of the field is enough for the detector to distinguish the two scenarios. We find this result holds for vacuum and excited field states of different kinds and we clarify the role of field mass in this setup.

Landauer's principle in Qubit-Cavity quantum field theory Interaction in Vacuum and Thermal States

“…Here χ(τ ) is the so-called "switching function" that controls the interaction, µ(τ ) is the monopole moment of the detector and φ[x(τ )] is the field operator at the position of the detector in the cavity. This model has also been used to build quantum gates for the processing of quantum information [28] and to study weak equivalence principle [29,30]. If we solve the system in the interaction picture, the monopole moment can be expressed as…”