Bose--Marletto--Vedral experiment Created 2026-09-28 Updated 2026-11-05
The Bose--Marletto--Vedral experiment is a family of proposals to test gravitationally induced entanglement between initially independent masses. Sougato Bose and collaborators, and independently Chiara Marletto and Vlatko Vedral, described the idea in 2017. Each mass occupies two distinguishable spatial branches, encoding a qubit. Different branch separations give different Newtonian gravitational potential energies and hence different relative phases.[ref]
For stationary branches at separations held for duration , the ideal model givesThe positive phase follows from negative Newtonian gravitational potential energy in . A direct algebraic check separates local rephasing from genuine entanglement: the determinant of the two-by-two coefficient matrix vanishes exactly whenThus a large common phase alone is insufficient. For this ideal pure state, the concurrence is , reaching one at an odd multiple of .
The spin-based proposal uses two Stern-Gerlach interferometers: embedded spins label the spatial branches, the masses interact, and recombination transfers the branch information into measurable spin correlations. Measurements in different spin bases supply an entanglement witness. Unwanted electromagnetic interactions and quantum decoherence must be controlled for the gravitational interpretation.[ref]
A Spin Entanglement Witness for Quantum Gravity by Sougato Bose and others. Figure 1(b), pp. 2–3, spin-dependent splitting, recombination and correlation readout
The mediator inference assumes initially unentangled systems, local coupling through a mediator, and no other entangling interaction. Under those assumptions, a mediator described only by commuting observables cannot generate the observed entanglement; at least two incompatible observables are required. This is an indirect test of nonclassical mediation, without selecting a complete high-energy theory of quantum gravity.[ref]
Gravitationally-induced entanglement between two massive particles is sufficient evidence of quantum effects in gravity by Chiara Marletto and Vlatko Vedral. Pages 2–3, mediator argument and locality assumptions
Sougato Bose 2026-11-05
Sougato Bose and collaborators proposed a spin-based witness for gravitationally induced quantum entanglement. Their 2017 design places two small masses in neighbouring matter-wave interferometers, with an embedded spin in each mass providing a correlation readout.[ref]
A Spin Entanglement Witness for Quantum Gravity by Sougato Bose and others. Abstract: interferometric paths, gravitational phases and spin-correlation witness
Different branch separations acquire different gravitational phases, potentially entangling the two systems. Competing electromagnetic forces and decoherence must be controlled before attributing a witness signal to gravity. The contribution is a proposed experimental strategy, rather than a claim that the experiment had already measured quantum gravity.