Interferometric visibility in curved spacetimes

Abstract

Abstract In (Zych et al 2011 Nat. Commun. 2 505), the authors predicted that the interferometric visibility is affected by a gravitational field in way that cannot be explained without the general relativistic notion of proper time. In this work, we take a different route and start deriving the same effect using the unitary representation of the local Lorentz transformation in the Newtonian limit. In addition, we show that the effect on the interferometric visibility due to gravity persists in different spacetime geometries. However, the influence is not necessarily due to the notion of proper time. For instance, by constructing a ‘astronomical’ Mach–Zehnder interferometer in the Schwarzschild spacetime, the influence on the interferometric visibility can be due to another general relativistic effect, the geodetic precession. Besides, by using the unitary representation of the local Lorentz transformation, we show that this behavior of the interferometric visibility is general for an arbitrary spacetime, provided that we restrict the motion of the quanton to a two-dimensional spacial plane.