We magnetically levitate microdiamonds in vacuum, and the microdiamonds we have made contain single nitrogen-vacancy centres with the longest spin coherence times. We aim to use this setup to put a microdiamond into a macroscopic quantum superposition of being in two places at once. But what is the gravitational effect of a mass in such a superposition? Sougato Bose has proposed a way to probe this question experimentally: if gravity is quantum then it could entangle two microdiamonds that are each in spatial superpositions. We are working towards performing this experiment as part of a new project called MAST-QG: Macroscopic superpositions towards witnessing the quantum nature of gravity. MAST-QG is a collaboration with David Moore, Andrew Geraci, Anupam Mazumdar and Sougato Bose.
Host: David Moore