Testing the effects of gravity and motion on quantum entanglement in space-based experiments

Abstract

We propose an experiment to test the effects of gravity and acceleration on quantum entanglement in space-based setups. We show that the entanglement between excitations of two Bose-Einstein condensates is degraded after one of them undergoes a change in the gravitational field strength. This prediction can be tested if the condensates are initially entangled in two separate satellites while being in the same orbit and then one of them moves to a different orbit. We show that the effect is observable in a typical orbital manoeuvre of nanosatellites like CanX4 and CanX5. © 2014 IOP Publishing Ltd and Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft.