Gravity and the Quantum: what is the Schwarzschild radius of a quantum state?

by Roberto Casadio (Bologna)

Tuesday 27 Jan 2015, 13:15 → 15:00 Europe/Stockholm

FB55

There are many attempts at quantising gravity from first principles (top-down approach). In this talk I will instead adopt a bottom-up approach and start from a very specific question: how can we determine whether a quantum mechanical system contains a horizon? In order to address this issue, I will introduce a "horizon wave-function" for quantum mechanical states, which is then applied to models of black holes (both as single particles and as Bose-Einstein condensates of many constituents), and cosmology. Ideally, this approach is meant to improve our understanding of the quantum effects in the gravitational collapse of astrophysical objects and black hole formation.