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MON: Monday Contributed Sessions

MON 10: Standard Model and Beyond

MON 10.4: Talk

Monday, September 8, 2025, 15:00–15:15, ZHG103

On the Equivalence Principle in the relativistic and quantum domain — •Claus Lämmerzahl and Hansjörg Dittus — University of Bremen, Am Fallturm 1, 28359 Bremen

The Equivalence Principle (EP) states that all pointlike particles fall in the same way in a gravitational field or that inertial mass is equivalent to gravitational mass. While this is very clear in a non-relativistic classical framework there are open issues in a relativistic and quantum context. First, it is not clear how to introduce in a covariant way a violation of the EP without referring to a bi-metric theory which is ruled out with very high precision from light propagation experiments. Second, quantum states are non-local and, thus, fail to be pointlike which leads to an at least apparent violation of the EP. Here we propose a new covariant approach to violations of the EP in stationary relativistic space-times. This approach naturally includes gravitomagnetic degrees of freedom and, thus, leads to a notion of an EP including all kinds of relativistic degrees of freedom. All these various aspects in principle can be tested with, e.g., atom interferometry. However, one has to further refine the notion of an EP in the quantum domain so that apparent violations of the EP owing to the spatial extension of quantum systems can be uniquely identified. Finally, we are left with an EP which holds both in the relativistic and in the quantum domain.

Keywords: General Relativity; Equivalence Principle; Quantum Equivalence Principle; atomic interferometry; gravitomagnetism