QUBO

QUBO: Exploring the QUantum Boundaries of many-body systems – an Odyssey into the gravity related collapse models, is a project financed by the John Templeton Foundation (Grant 62099). QUBO is exploring the limits of the many-body systems quantumness. Decades of theoretical and experimental research lead to the development of, mathematically consistent, generalizations of the Quantum Theory (QT) capable of solving the measurement problem [1,2,3,4,5,6,7]. These so-called Collapse Models (CM) implement stochastic and non-linear modifications to the Schrödinger dynamics, which induce the disruption of the quantum superposition, as fast as big is the many-body system under consideration. Experimental verification of the CMs mechanism would have a huge impact on many-body quantum systems, posing intrinsic limits on their linear and deterministic – quantum – evolution, despite the efforts spent for isolating them from the environment, with a strong impact on Quantum Technologies.

QUBO is realizing a high-sensitivity, intertwined theoretical and experimental, investigation of the CMs, with a special attention to the visionary theory developed by Diosi and Penrose (DP) [1,2,8,9], in which the agent related to the collapse is identified with the gravity. Differently from Quantum Gravity formulations, which attempt to quantize the gravitational field, DP aims to “gravitize” the QT, motivated by the fact that space-time fluctuations would induce decoherence in quantum systems [10,11]

Following our pioneering study, which ruled out the simplest, parameter free version of the DP model [12], we are developing within QUBO more realistic, generalized versions of DP model. Moreover, we are developing a phenomenological framework in which the generalized DP models can be experimentally tested, by measuring the, so called, spontaneous radiation rate, predicted by these models. We are running dedicated experiments at the Gran Sasso underground laboratories capable of unveiling signals of gravity-induced collapse with unprecedented sensitivity. In the context of QUBO, we are also developing generalized non-gravity related CMs, such as the Continuous Spontaneous Localization (CSL) [4,5,6,7], and investigating the impact of our measurements on these models. In connection with a broader interdisciplinary inquiry into the nature of human thought, we are also investigating the impact of our studies on one of the most known and remarkable theories of consciousness, the Orch OR theory (orchestrated objective reduction) put forward by Penrose and Hameroff [13].