Center of Mass and Gravity After Quantum Entanglement
This is more of an open question we're curious about and not something we're claiming should work or is accurate, so apologies in advance if we butcher any terminology or concepts. Credits to Waterflame for posing the initial question that gave way to the rest of the idea - if quantum entanglement is actually the result of a hidden variable (4th spatial dimension), we wonder if a shift in center of mass/gravity might be a way to test it.
The implication is that if the center of gravity or mass shifts, then there may be something physical connecting the two particles but through space we are not aware of (ie 4th spatial dimension). A 2D analogy would be to have two seemingly separate dots on a sheet of paper moving in synchronization, but zooming out in 3D, you would see the dots are connected by a compass or other tool. What we are asking then is whether we can detect the existence of that connection from the point of the view of the 2D paper by measuring the center of mass or gravity and detecting the "weight" of something in between causing the center to shift.
A potential problem to running this test would be if the entangled particles were lined up perfectly in 4D space such that any unseen connection were perpendicular, hidden exactly behind the entangled particles from our perspective, and not affecting the center of mass/gravity. Going back to the 2D paper example, this would be if the paper is bent such that the 2 dots are perfectly parallel in 3D space.
So we'd have to hope the linkage is not perpendicular - that way it does not share the same center of gravity as the entangled particles (and therefore causes a shift). And an interesting additional byproduct suggested by this if correct is that we should actually get two centers of mass, offset from each entangled particle by the same amount.
It seems like this view might be along similar lines to how Einstein viewed Quantum Mechanics (see Quora discussion) as being more an estimation and that there is a hidden variable we aren't seeing (EPR paper). Perhaps what happens in the process of entanglement - such as in a reaction to create two entangled ones - is we think there are only 2 particles coming out of the reaction, but a third one also comes off the 2D paper into 3D space (outside our detection) which is still connected to the two we see on the paper. This would also help explain faster than light travel of information if that sheet of paper were curved, such that the third particle represented a shorter connection between the entangled particles and information did not need to travel faster than light along that space.
Existing Research So Far
So far, at least I've managed to find, it seems like we're just not there yet to be able to detect gravity at a quantum scale. The papers and articles I've read seem to imply quantum mechanics experiments are usually done in the absence or assumption of absence of gravity. They also seem to imply quantum characteristics like entanglement fade once exposed to the gravitational pull of Earth (but it could also be because a force is exerted at all on the particles). There is some research on the actual gravitational field potentially being affected by the entanglement, but as mentioned above, this would be a different thing than what we're interested in.
Another way the question may be addressed over time is if technology improves to entangle larger and larger groups of particles, to the point we have an object entangled that we can definitely measure the center of mass/gravity for. This may not be that far-fetched - if the news is accurate, it seems we are now able to produce entangled atoms en mass:
https://phys.org/news/2021-02-entangled-atoms.html#:~:text=Individual%20atoms%20can%20be%20entangled,out%20to%20be%20entangled%20afterwards.
https://www.livescience.com/physicists-entangle-15-trillion-hot-atoms.html
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-15899-1
This post may be updated as I find more information/research on the topic. This post is more a placeholder for my own thoughts/notes and not meant to be a source of authority on anything.
The implication is that if the center of gravity or mass shifts, then there may be something physical connecting the two particles but through space we are not aware of (ie 4th spatial dimension). A 2D analogy would be to have two seemingly separate dots on a sheet of paper moving in synchronization, but zooming out in 3D, you would see the dots are connected by a compass or other tool. What we are asking then is whether we can detect the existence of that connection from the point of the view of the 2D paper by measuring the center of mass or gravity and detecting the "weight" of something in between causing the center to shift.
A potential problem to running this test would be if the entangled particles were lined up perfectly in 4D space such that any unseen connection were perpendicular, hidden exactly behind the entangled particles from our perspective, and not affecting the center of mass/gravity. Going back to the 2D paper example, this would be if the paper is bent such that the 2 dots are perfectly parallel in 3D space.
So we'd have to hope the linkage is not perpendicular - that way it does not share the same center of gravity as the entangled particles (and therefore causes a shift). And an interesting additional byproduct suggested by this if correct is that we should actually get two centers of mass, offset from each entangled particle by the same amount.
It seems like this view might be along similar lines to how Einstein viewed Quantum Mechanics (see Quora discussion) as being more an estimation and that there is a hidden variable we aren't seeing (EPR paper). Perhaps what happens in the process of entanglement - such as in a reaction to create two entangled ones - is we think there are only 2 particles coming out of the reaction, but a third one also comes off the 2D paper into 3D space (outside our detection) which is still connected to the two we see on the paper. This would also help explain faster than light travel of information if that sheet of paper were curved, such that the third particle represented a shorter connection between the entangled particles and information did not need to travel faster than light along that space.
Existing Research So Far
So far, at least I've managed to find, it seems like we're just not there yet to be able to detect gravity at a quantum scale. The papers and articles I've read seem to imply quantum mechanics experiments are usually done in the absence or assumption of absence of gravity. They also seem to imply quantum characteristics like entanglement fade once exposed to the gravitational pull of Earth (but it could also be because a force is exerted at all on the particles). There is some research on the actual gravitational field potentially being affected by the entanglement, but as mentioned above, this would be a different thing than what we're interested in.
Another way the question may be addressed over time is if technology improves to entangle larger and larger groups of particles, to the point we have an object entangled that we can definitely measure the center of mass/gravity for. This may not be that far-fetched - if the news is accurate, it seems we are now able to produce entangled atoms en mass:
https://phys.org/news/2021-02-entangled-atoms.html#:~:text=Individual%20atoms%20can%20be%20entangled,out%20to%20be%20entangled%20afterwards.
https://www.livescience.com/physicists-entangle-15-trillion-hot-atoms.html
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-15899-1
This post may be updated as I find more information/research on the topic. This post is more a placeholder for my own thoughts/notes and not meant to be a source of authority on anything.
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