On the Quantum Mechanics of Entropic Forces
It was conjectured 30 years ago that gravity could arise from the entropic rearrangement of information. We offer a set of microscopic quantum models which realize this idea in detail. In particular, we suggest a simple mechanism by which Newton’s law of gravity arises from extremization of the free energy of a collection of qubits or oscillators, rather than from the exchange of virtual quanta of a fundamental field. We give both a local and a nonlocal version of the construction and show how to distinguish a range of these entropic models from ordinary perturbative quantum gravity using existing observations and near-term experiments.
Authors
- Manthos Karydas (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2788-6297)
- Jacob M. Taylor (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0493-5594)
- Roshni Singh (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0998-9527)
- Thilo Scharnhorst
- Karl J. Friston
Institutions
- National Institute of Standards and Technology (US)
- Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (US)
- University of California System (US)
- Joint Center for Quantum Information and Computer Science (US)
- National Institute of Standards (EG)
- Joint Quantum Institute (US)
- University of Maryland, College Park (US)
- University of California, Berkeley (US)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Physical Review X
- Published
- 2025-07-14
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1103/y7sy-3by1
- Citations
- 1
- Primary Topic
- Mechanical and Optical Resonators
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 1.25