Underground experiment rules out a 60-year-old theory of quantum collapse

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Why do quantum superpositions seem to disappear in the everyday world? One old idea said that fluctuations in spacetime itself might be responsible, and a new experiment has ruled out a version of it. SciTechDaily reports on the work, which ran deep under Italy's Gran Sasso mountain

The theory comes from Hungarian physicist Frigyes Karolyhazy in the 1960s. It predicts that gravity related collapse of superpositions should produce a faint glow of radiation. To look for it, researchers ran a high purity germanium detector for 62 days, shielded by copper and lead, at the INFN national laboratory under the mountain

They found no sign of the predicted radiation. That rules out a generalised version of the model, which Angelo Bassi and colleagues had reformulated to make it testable. The authors include Catalina Curceanu of INFN Frascati and experimental lead Kristian Piscicchia

It is important to be clear about what this does and does not show. It does not rule out every way gravity might cause quantum states to collapse. Other models remain on the table, and this experiment narrows the search rather than ending it

The paper was published in New Journal of Physics in June, so this is a late write up, but it is a lovely example of fundamental physics. Underground labs make perfect places to look for tiny signals because the rock blocks cosmic rays. Questions about how quantum and classical worlds connect still have no final answer

Do you think gravity has anything to do with quantum collapse? And which interpretation of quantum mechanics do you find most convincing?

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