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AGPhil: Arbeitsgruppe Philosophie der Physik

AGPhil 6: Foundations of Gravity

AGPhil 6.3: Vortrag

Mittwoch, 23. März 2022, 15:15–15:45, AGPhil-H14

A Case for Further Inquiry into Spin and Gravity — •Zachary Hall — Stanford University

I present an undiscussed instance of the tension between the background-dependent formalism of quantum theory and the background-independence of classical general relativity. Notably, the issue is subject to empirical testing, for which reason it also holds interest for those who eschew background-independent methods or interpretations in gravitational theory. The issue is that the representations of spin-states in quantum theory depend prima facie on an embedding of those states in a flat background geometry. This raises the question of whether we should continue using a background geometry in representing spin-states in a world with gravitation. The empirical questions are apparent with knowledge of how experimentalists align (a) preparing and measuring devices of spin-states undergoing no non-gravitationally induced precession and (b) measuring devices in multiple wings of experiments on spin-entangled states. The aligning procedure is operational, meaning that the question of how the aligned measurement axes should be represented in the spacetime has been so-far uninvestigated. While some may be inclined to think that they should be represented with the Christoffel symbols and path information of the system, it is not clear that this is the only acceptable solution a priori.