Journal Article

Gravitationally induced entanglement at finite temperature: A memory-driven time-crystalline phase?

Nandi, Partha, Dutta, Mainak, Majhi, Bibhas Ranjan

2025

Overview

A bstract We study the impact of thermal effects on gravity-induced entanglement (GIE) in a system of quantum harmonic oscillators interacting with classical linearly polarized gravitational waves (GWs). Specifically, we model the endpoints of interferometer arms in LIGO-like detectors as two-dimensional oscillators. Following the thermofield dynamics (TFD) approach, our analysis reveals that while thermal effects alone do not generate entanglement between independent oscillator modes, they serve as a catalyst, modifying the dynamical imprint of GWs. Notably, we identify a mixing of Bose-Einstein and Maxwell-Boltzmann distributions driven by thermal influences, which affects the statistical behavior of the quantum subsystem. Furthermore, gravitational interactions induce a quantum memory effect, leading to emergent periodic behavior in the reduced subsystem. This suggests a novel gravitationally induced breaking of time-translation symmetry, reminiscent of a prethermal time crystal (PTC). Our findings indicate that such effects could provide new theoretical insights into classical gravitational wave interactions.

• Publisher: Springer Berlin Heidelberg,Springer Nature B.V,SpringerOpen
• Subject: Classical and Quantum Gravitation / Classical Theories of Gravity / Discrete Symmetries / Elementary Particles / Gravitational waves / Gravity / Harmonic oscillators / Influence / Linear polarization / Models of Quantum Gravity / Oscillators / Physics / Physics and Astronomy / Quantum entanglement / Quantum Field Theories / Quantum Field Theory / Quantum phenomena / Quantum Physics / Regular Article - Theoretical Physics / Relativity Theory / Sensors / String Theory / Subsystems / Temperature effects / Thermal Field Theory / Wave interaction