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October 22, 2025
JOURNAL CLUB: On the Quantum Mechanics of Entropic Forces

Hour: From 12:00h to 13:00h

Place: Seminar Room

JOURNAL CLUB: On the Quantum Mechanics of Entropic Forces

PAVEL POPOV
ICFO Quantum Optics Theory

ABSTRACT:

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.

Paper: https://journals.aps.org/prx/abstract/10.1103/y7sy-3by1

Hosted by Journal Club
Seminars
October 22, 2025
JOURNAL CLUB: On the Quantum Mechanics of Entropic Forces

Hour: From 12:00h to 13:00h

Place: Seminar Room

JOURNAL CLUB: On the Quantum Mechanics of Entropic Forces

PAVEL POPOV
ICFO Quantum Optics Theory

ABSTRACT:

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.

Paper: https://journals.aps.org/prx/abstract/10.1103/y7sy-3by1

Hosted by Journal Club