Gravitationally induced decoherence vs space-time diffusion: testing the quantum

nature of gravity
Jonathan Oppenheim,1 Carlo Sparaciari,1 Barbara Šoda,1, 2, 3 and Zachary Weller-Davies3, 1
1
Department of Physics and Astronomy, University College London,
Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, United Kingdom
2
Dept. of Physics, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
3
Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
(Dated: March 7, 2022)
We consider two interacting systems when one is treated classically while the other system remains
quantum. Consistent dynamics of this coupling has been shown to exist, and explored in the context
of treating space-time classically. Here, we prove that such hybrid dynamics necessarily results in
decoherence of the quantum system, and a breakdown in predictability in the classical phase space.
arXiv:2203.01982v1 [quant-ph] 3 Mar 2022

We further prove that a trade-off between the rate of this decoherence and the degree of diffusion
induced in the classical system is a general feature of all classical quantum dynamics; long coherence
times require strong diffusion in phase-space relative to the strength of the coupling. Applying the
trade-off relation to gravity, we find a relationship between the strength of gravitationally-induced
decoherence versus diffusion of the metric and its conjugate momenta. This provides an experimental
signature of theories in which gravity is fundamentally classical. Bounds on decoherence rates
arising from current interferometry experiments, combined with precision measurements of mass,
place significant restrictions on theories where Einstein’s classical theory of gravity interacts with
quantum matter. We find that part of the parameter space of such theories are already squeezed
out, and provide figures of merit which can be used in future mass measurements and interference
experiments.

I. INTRODUCTION

When considering the dynamics of composite quantum systems, there are many regimes where one system can be
taken to be classical and the other quantum-mechanical. For example, in quantum thermodynamics we often have
a quantum system interacting with a large thermal reservoir that can be treated classically, whilst in atomic physics
it is common to consider the behaviour of quantum atoms in the presence of classical electromagnetic fields. Things
become more complicated when one considers classical-quantum (CQ) dynamics where the quantum system back-
reacts on the classical system. This is particularly relevant in gravity, because we would like to study the back-reaction
of thermal radiation being emitted from black holes on space-time, and while the matter fields can be described by
quantum field theory, we only know how to treat space-time classically. Likewise in cosmology, vacuum fluctuations
are a quantum effect which we believe seeds galaxy formation, while the expanding space-time they live on can only
be treated classically. In addition to the need for an effective theory which treats space-time in the classical limit,
there has long been a debate about whether one should quantise gravity [1–12].
There has even been much discussion on whether quantum-classical coupling can even be consistent. Many proposals
for such dynamics [13, 14] are not completely positive (CP)1 , meaning they are at best an approximation and fail
outside a regime of validity [15, 16]. The semi-classical Einstein’s equation [17, 18], which replaces the quantum
operator corresponding to the stress-energy tensor by its expectation value, is another attempt to treat the classical
limit from an effective point of view, but it is non-linear in the state, leading to pathological behavior if quantum
fluctuations are of comparable magnitude to the stress-energy tensor [19]. This is often the precise regime we would
like to understand.
However, dynamics introduced in [20, 21] and studied in [11, 22–24] do not suffer from such problems, and lead
to consistent dynamics. In particular, the master-equation shown in Equation (4), is linear, preserves the division of
classical degrees of freedom and quantum ones, and is completely positive (CP) and preserves normalisation. This
ensures that probabilities of measurement outcomes remain positive and always add to 1. The dynamics is related
to the GKSL or Lindblad equation [25, 26], which for bounded generators of the dynamics, is the most general
Markovian dynamics for an open quantum system. Likewise, Equation (4) is the most general Markovian classical-
quantum dynamics with bounded generators [11]. Sub-classes of this master equation along with meeasurement and
feedback approaches have been discussed in the context of Newtonian models of gravity [23, 27–32], and further

1 A map Λ is completely positive, iff 1 ⊗ Λ is positive. This is the required condition used to derive the GKSL Equation. If it is violated,
the dynamics acting on half of an entangled state, give negative probabilities.
 2

developed into a spatially covariant framework so that Einstein gravity in the ADM formalism [33] emerges as a
limiting case [11, 34].

In this work, we move away from specific realisations of CQ dynamics, in order to discuss their common features
and the experimental signatures that follow from this. An early precursor to the discussion here, is the insight of
Diósi [21] who added classical noise and quantum decoherence to the master equation of [13], and found the noise and
decoherence trade-off required for the dynamics to become completely positive. Here we prove that the phenomena
found in [11, 21, 24] are generic features of all CQ dynamics; the classical-quantum interaction necessarily induces
decoherence on the quantum system, and there is a generic trade-off between the rate of decoherence and the amount
of diffusion in the classical phase space. The stronger the interaction between the quantum system and the classical
one, the greater the trade-off. One cannot have quantum systems with long-coherence times without inducing a lot of
diffusion in the classical system. One can also generalise this result to a trade-off between the rate of diffusion and the
strength of more general couplings to Lindblad operators, with decoherence being a special case. This is expressed as
Equations (25) and (23), which bounds the product of diffusion coefficients and Lindblad coupling constants in terms
of the strength of the CQ-interaction. It is precisely this trade-off which allows the theories considered here, to evade
the no-go arguments of Feynmann [1, 2], Aharonov [3], Eppley and Hannah [4] and others [1, 7–9, 15, 16, 35–43]. The
essence of arguments against quantum-classical interactions is that they would prohibit superpositions of quantum
systems which source a classical field. Since different classical fields are perfectly distinguishable in principle, if the
classical field is in a distinct state for each quantum state in the superposition, the classical field could always be
used to determine the state of the quantum system, causing it to decohere instantly. By satisfying the trade-off,
the quantum system preserves coherence because diffusion of the classical degrees of freedom mean that the state of
the classical field does not determine the state of the quantum system [11, 23]. Equation (25) and other variants
we derive, quantify the amount of diffusion required to preserve any amount of coherence. If space-time curvature
is treated classically, then complete positivity of the dynamics means its interaction with quantum fields necessarily
results in unpredictability and gravitationally induced decoherence.

This trade-off between the decoherence rate and diffusion provides an experimental signature, not only of models of
hybrid Newtonian dynamics such as [27] or post-quantum theories of General Relativity such as [11] but of any theory
which treats gravity as being fundamentally classical. The metric and their conjugate momenta necessarily diffuse away
from what Einstein’s General Relativity predicts. This experimental signature squeezes classical-quantum theories
of gravity from both sides: if one has shorter decoherence times for superpositions of different mass distributions,
one necessarily has more diffusion of the metric and conjugate momenta. In Appendix F we show that the latter
effect causes imprecision in measurements of mass such as those undertaken in the Cavendish experiment [44–46] or
in measurements of Newton’s constant “Big G”[47–49]. The precision at which a mass can be measured in a short
time, thus provides an upper bound on the amount of gravitational diffusion, as quantified by Equation (42), while
decoherence experiments place a lower bound on the diffusion. Our estimates suggest that experimental lower bounds
on the coherence time of large molecules [50–55], combined with gravitational experiments measuring the acceleration
of small masses [56–58], already place strong restrictions on theories where space time isn’t quantised. In Section
V we show that several realisations of CQ-gravity are already ruled out, while other realisations produce enough
diffusion away from General Relativity to be detectable by future table-top experiments. Although the absence of
such deviations from General Relativity would not be as direct a confirmation of the quantum nature of gravity, such
as experiments proposed in [59–67] to exhibit entanglement generated by gravitons, it would effectively rule out any
sensible theory which treats space-time classically. While confirmation of gravitational diffusion would suggest that
space-time is fundamentally classical.

The outline of this paper is as follows. In Sec. II we review the general form of the CQ master equation of classical-
quantum systems. The CQ-map can be represented in a manner akin to the Kraus-representation [68] for quantum
maps, with conditions for it to be Completely Positive and Trace Preserving (CPTP). We can perform a short time
moment expansion of the CQ-map taking states at some initial time, to states at a later time. This gives us the CQ
version of the Kramers-Moyal expansion [69, 70]. The physical meaning of the moments is discussed in Subsection
II B. In Sec. III we show that there is a general trade-off between decoherence of the quantum system and diffusion
in the classical system. We generalize the trade-off to the case of fields in Section IV and in Subsection V, we apply
the inequality in the gravitational setting. The positivity constraints mean that the considerations do not depend on
the specifics of the theory, only that it treats gravity classically, and be Markovian. This allows us to discuss some of
the observational implications of this result and we comment on the relevant figures of merit required in interference
and precision mass measurements in order to constrain theories of gravity, as they are not always readily available in
published reports. In addition to table-top constraints, we consider those due to cosmological observations. We then
conclude with a discussion of our results in Sec. VI. The Appendix collects or previews a number of technical results.
 3

II. CLASSICAL-QUANTUM DYNAMICS

Let us first review the general map and master equation governing classical-quantum dynamics. The classical
degrees of freedom are described by a differential manifold M and we shall generically denote elements of the classical
space by z. For example, we could take the classical degrees of freedom to be position and momenta in which case
M = R2 and z = (q, p). The quantum degrees of freedom are described by a Hilbert space H. Given the Hilbert
space, we denote the set of positive semi-definite operators with trace at most unity as S≤1 (H). Then the CQ object
Rdefining the state of the CQ system at a given time is a map % : M → S≤1 (H) subject to a normalization constraint
M
dzTrH [%] = 1. To put it differently, we associate to each classical degree of freedom a sub-normalized density
operator, %(z), R such that TrH [%] = p(z) ≥ 0 is a normalized probability distribution over the classical degrees of
freedom and M dz%(z) is a normalized density operator on H. An example of such a CQ-state is the CQ qubit
depicted as a 2 × 2 matrix over phase space [24]. More generally, we can define any CQ operator f (z) which lives in
the fibre bundle with base space M and fibre H.
Just as the Lindblad equation is the most general evolution law which maps density matrices to density matrices,
we can ask, what is the most general evolution law, which preserves the quantum-classical state-space. Any such
dynamics, if it is to preserve probabilities, must be completely positive, norm preserving, and linear in the CQ-state2 .
We will also require the map to be Markovian on the combined classical-quantum system, which is equivalent to
requiring that there is no hidden system which acts as a memory. This is natural if the interaction is taken to be
fundamental, but is the assumption which one might want to remove if one thinks of the hybrid theory as an effective
description. We thus take these as the minimal requirements that any fundamental classical-quantum theory must
satisfy if it is to be consistent.
The most general CQ-dynamics, which maps CQ states onto themselves can be written in the form [11]
Z X
%(z, t + δt) = dz 0 Λµν (z|z 0 , δt)Lµ %(z 0 , t)L†ν (1)
µν

where the Lµ are an orthogonal basis of operators and Λµν (z|z 0 , δt) is positive
P semi-definite for each z, z 0 . Henceforth,
we will adopt the Einstein summation convention so that we can drop µν with the understanding that equal upper
and lower indices are presumed to be summed over. The normalization of probabilities requires
Z
dzΛµν (z|z 0 , δt)L†ν Lµ = I. (2)

The choice of basis Lµ is arbitrary, although there may be one which allows for unique trajectories [24]. Equation (1)
can be viewed as a generalisation of the Kraus decomposition theorem.
In the case where the classical degrees of freedom are taken to be discrete, Poulin [71] used the diagonal form of this
map to derive the most general form of Markovian master equation for bounded operators, which is the one introduced
in [20]. When the classical degrees of freedom are taken to live in a continuous configuration space, we need to be a little
more careful, since %(z) may only be defined in a distributional sense; for example, %(z) = R δ(z, z̄)%(z̄). In this case (1) is
completely positive if the eigenvalues of Λµν (z|z 0 , δt), λµ (z|z 0 , δt), are positive so that dzdz 0 Pµ (z, z 0 )λµ (z|z 0 , δt) ≥ 0
for any vector with positive components Pµ (z, z 0 ) [72].
One can derive the CQ master equation by performing a short time expansion of (1) in the case when the Lµ are
bounded [11]. To do so, we first introduce an arbitrary basis of traceless Lindblad operators on the Hilbert space,
Lµ = {I, Lα }. Now, at δt = 0 we know (1) is the identity map, which tells us that Λ00 (z|z 0 , δt = 0) = δ(z, z 0 ). Looking
at the short time expansion coefficients, by Taylor expanding in δt  1, we can write
Λµν (z|z 0 , δt) = δ0µ δ0ν δ(z, z 0 ) + W µν (z|z 0 )δt + O(δt2 ). (3)
By substituting the short time expansion coefficients into (1) and taking the limit δt → 0 we can write the master
equation in the form
Z
∂%(z, t) 1
= dz 0 W µν (z|z 0 )Lµ %(z 0 )L†ν − W µν (z){L†ν Lµ , %}+ , (4)
∂t 2

2 That dynamics must be linear can be seen as follows: if someone prepares a system in one of two states σ0 or σ1 depending on
the value of a coin toss (|0i h0| with probability p, |1i h1| with probability 1 − p), then the evolution L of the system must satisfy
p |0i h0| ⊗ Lσ0 + (1 − p) |1i h1| ⊗ Lσ1 = L(pσ0 + (1 − p)σ1 ) otherwise the system evolves differently depending on whether we are aware
of the value of the coin toss. A violation of linearity further implies that when the system is in state σ0 it evolves differently depending
on what state the system would have been prepared in, had the coin been |1i h1| instead of |0i h0|. This motivates our restriction to
linear theories.
 4
R
where {, }+ is the anti-commutator, and preservation of normalisation under the trace and dz defines
Z
W µν (z) = dz 0 W µν (z 0 |z). (5)

We see the CQ master equation is a natural generalisation of the Lindblad equation and classical rate equation in
the case of classical-quantum coupling. We give a more precise interpretation of the different terms arising when we
perform the Kramers-Moyal expansion of the master equation at the end of the section. The positivity conditions
from (1) transfer to positivity conditions on the master equation via (3). We can write the positivity conditions in an
illuminating form by writing the short time expansion of the transition amplitude Λµν (z|z 0 , δt), as defined by equation
(3), in block form
δ(z, z 0 ) + δtW 00 (z|z 0 ) δtW 0β (z|z 0 )
 
µν 0
Λ (z|z , δt) = + O(δt2 ) (6)
δtW α0 (z|z 0 ) δtW αβ (z|z 0 )
and the dynamics will be positive if and only if Λµν (z|z 0 , δt) is a positive matrix. It is possible to introduce an arbitrary
set of Lindblad operators L̄µ and appropriately redefine the couplings W µν (z|z 0 ) in (4) [11]. For most purposes, we
shall work with a set of Lindblad operators which includes the identity Lµ = (I, Lα ); this is sufficient since any CQ
master equation is completely positive if and only if it can be brought to the form in (4), where the matrix (6) is
positive.

A. The CQ Kramers-Moyal expansion

In order to study the positivity conditions it is first useful to perform a moment expansion of the dynamics in a
classical-quantum version of the Kramers-Moyal expansion [11]. In classical Markovian dynamics, the Kramers-Moyal
expansion relates the master equation to the moments of the probability transition amplitude and proves to be useful
for a multitude of reasons. Firstly, the moments are related to observable quantities; for example, the first and second
moments of the probability transition amplitude characterize the amount of drift and diffusion in the system. This is
reviewed in Subsection II B. Secondly, the positivity conditions on the master equation transfer naturally to positivity
conditions on the moments, which we can then relate to observable quantities. In the classical-quantum case, we
shall perform a short time moment expansion of the transition amplitude Λµν (z|z 0 , δt) and then show that the master
equation can be written in terms of these moments. We then relate the moments to observational quantities, such as
the decoherence of the quantum system and the diffusion in the classical system.
We work with the form of the dynamics in (4), using an arbitrary orthogonal basis of Lindblad operators Lµ =
{I, Lα }. We take the classical degrees of freedom M to be d dimensional, z = (z1 , . . . zd ), and we label the components
as zi , i ∈ {1, . . . d}. We begin by introducing the moments of the transition amplitude W µν (z|z 0 ) appearing in the
CQ master equation (3)
Z
µν 0 1
Dn,i 1 ...in
(z ) := dzW µν (z|z 0 )(z − z 0 )i1 . . . (z − z 0 )in . (7)
n!
The subscripts ij ∈ {1, . . . d} label the different components of the vectors (z − z 0 ). For example, in the case where
d = 2 and the classical degrees of freedom are position and momenta of a particle, z = (z1 , z2 ) = (q, p), then we
have (z − z 0 ) = (z1 − z10 , z2 − z20 ) = (q − q 0 , p − p0 ). The components are then given by (z − z 0 )1 = (q − q 0 ) and
µν
(z − z 0 )2 = (p − p0 ). Mn,i 1 ...in
(z 0 , δt) is seen to be an n’th rank tensor with dn components.
µν
In terms of the components Dn,i 1 ...in
the short time expansion of the transition amplitude Λµν (z|z 0 ) is given by [72]
∞
∂n
X  
Λµν (z|z 0 , δt) = δ0µ δ0ν δ(z, z 0 ) + δt µν
Dn,i 1 ...in
(z 0
) 0 . . . ∂z 0 δ(z, z 0 ) + O(δt2 ), (8)
n=0
∂zi1 in

and the master equation takes the form [11]

∞
∂n
 
∂%(z, t) X
(−1)n 00


= Dn,i 1 ...in
(z, δt)%(z, t)
∂t n=1
∂zi1 . . . ∂zin
1
− i[H(z), %(z)] + D0αβ (z)Lα %(z)L†β − D0αβ {L†β Lα , %(z)}+
2
∞
∂n
X X  
µν
(−1)n (z)Lµ %(z, t)L†ν ,


+ Dn,i 1 ...in
(9)
n=1
∂zi1 . . . ∂zin
µν6=00
 5

where we define the Hermitian operator H(z) = 2i (D0µ0 Lµ − D00µ L†µ ) (which is Hermitian since D0µ0 = D00µ∗ ). We see
the first line of (9) describes purely classical dynamics, and is fully described by the moments of the identity component
of the dynamics Λ00 (z|z 0 ). The second line describes pure quantum Lindbladian evolution described by the zeroth
moments of the components Λα0 (z|z 0 ), Λαβ (z|z 0 ); specifically the (block) off diagonals, D0α0 (z), describe the pure
Hamiltonian evolution, whilst the components D0αβ (z) describe the dissipative part of the pure quantum evolution.
Note that the Hamiltonian and Lindblad couplings can depend on the classical degrees of freedom so the second line
describes action of the classical system on the quantum one. The third line contains the non-trivial classical-quantum
back-reaction, where changes in the distribution over phase space are induced and can be accompanied by changes in
the quantum state.

B. Physical interpretation of the moments

Let us now briefly review the physical interpretation of the moments which will appear in our trade-off relation. In
particular, the zeroth moment determines the rate of decoherence (and Lindbladian coupling more generally), the first
moment gives the force exerted by the quantum system on the classical system, and the second moment determines
the diffusion of the classical degrees of freedom. For this discussion we shall take the classical degrees of freedom to
live in a phase space Γ = (M, ω), where ω is the symplectic form. R
Consider the expectation value of any CQ operator O(z), hO(z)i := dzTr [O(z)%] which doesn’t have an explicit
time dependence. Its evolution law can be determined via Equation (9)
Z  
dhOi ∂%
= dzTr O(z)
dt ∂t
Z 
1
= dzTr% −i[O(z), H(z)] + D0αβ (z)L†β O(z)Lα − D0αβ {Lα L†β , O(z)}+
2
∞ 
#
n

∂ 
(z)L†β Lα O(z, t)
X αβ
+ Dn,i 1 ...in
(10)
n=1
∂z i 1 . . . ∂z i n

where we have used cyclicity of trace and integration by parts, to bring the equation of motion into a form which
would enable us to write a CQ version of the Heisenberg representation [11] for a CQ operator. If we are interested
in the expectation value of phase space variables O(z) = zi I then Equation (10) gives

dhzi i
Z
µν
Tr L†ν Lµ %(z, t)
 
= dzD1,i (11)
dt
µν
hL†ν Lµ i governs the average rate at which the
P
with all higher order terms vanishing, and we see that µν6=00 D1,i
quantum system moves the classical system through phase space, and with the back-reaction is quantified by the
Hermitian matrix D1αµ := (D1br )αµ . The force of this back-reaction is especially apparent if the equations of motion
are Hamiltonian in the classical limit as in [11]. I.e. if we define HI (z) := hαβ L†β Lα and take D1,iαβ
= ωij dj hαβ with
ω the symplectic form and dj the exterior derivative. Then Equation (11) is analogous to Hamilton’s equations, and
the CQ evolution equation after tracing out the quantum system has the form of a Liouville’s equation to first order
and in the classical limit,
∂ρ(z, t)
= {Hc , ρ(z, t)} + tr ({HI (z), %(z)}) + . . . (12)
∂t
with ρ(z) := Tr [%(z)].
The significance of the second moment is also seen via Equation (10) to be related to the variance of phase space
variables σzi1 zi2 := hzi1 zi2 i − hzi1 ihzi2 i

dσz2i1 ,zi2 αβ
= 2hD2,i1 ,i2
L†β Lα i + hz2 D1,z
αβ
L†β Lα i − hzi2 ihD1,z
αβ
L†β Lα i + hzi1 D1,z
αβ
L†β Lα i − hzi1 ihD1,z
αβ
L†β Lα i (13)
dt i
1 i1 i
2 i
2

In the case when D1,zi1 is uncorrelated with zi2 and D1,zi2 uncorrelated with zi1 , then the growth of the variance
only depends on the diffusion coefficient.
The zeroth moment D0αβ is just the pure Lindbladian couplings. The simplest example is the case of a pure
decoherence process with a single Hermitian Lindblad operator L and decoherence coupling D0 . Then we can define
 6

a basis {|ai} via the eigenvectors of L and

∂% 1
ha| |bi = −i ha| [H(z), %] |bi − D0 (L(a) − L(b))2 ha|%|bi (14)
∂t 2
and we see that the matrix elements of % which quantify coherence between the states |ai,|bi decay exponentially
fast with a decay rate of D0 (L(a) − L(b))2 . For a damping/pumping process of a quantum harmonic oscillator with
Hamiltonian H = ωa† a, L↓ = a, L↑ = a† , a the creation operator, and D0↑↑ , D0↓↓ the non-zero couplings, then
standard calculations [24, 73] show that an initial superposition √12 |n + mi with n,m large and n  m will initially
decohere at a rate of approximately (D0↑↑ + D0↓↓ )(m + n)/2, and the state will eventually thermalise to a temperature
of ω/ log (D0↓↓ /D0↑↑ ). So in this case, the Lindblad couplings not only determine the rate of decoherence, but also the
rate at which energy is pumped into the harmonic oscillator. In the next section we will derive the trade-off between
Lindblad couplings and the diffusion coefficients. Although we will sometimes refer to this as a trade-off between
decoherence and diffusion, this terminology is only strictly appropriate for pure decoherence processes, while more
generally, it is a trade-off between Lindblad couplings and diffusion coefficients.

III. A TRADE OFF BETWEEN DECOHERENCE AND DIFFUSION

In this section we use positivity conditions to prove that the trade off between decoherence and diffusion seen in
models such as those of [11, 21, 24] are in fact a general feature of all classical-quantum interactions. We shall also
generalise this, and derive a trade-off between diffusion and arbitrary Lindbladian coupling strengths. The trade-off
is in relation to the strength of the dynamics and is captured by Equation’s (20), (23) and (25). In section IV we
extend the trade-off to the case where the classical and quantum degrees of freedom can be fields and use this to show
that treating the metric as being classical necessarily results in diffusion of the gravitational field.
There are two separate possible sources for the force (or drift) of the back-reaction of the quantum system on phase
0α αβ
space – it can be sourced by either the D1,i components or the Lindbladian components D1,i . We shall deal with
both sources simultaneously by considering a CQ Cauchy-Schwartz inequality which arises from the positivity of
Z 
Tr dzdz 0 Λµν (z|z 0 )Oµ (z, z 0 )ρ(z 0 )Oν† (z, z 0 ) ≥ 0 (15)

for any vector of CQ operators Oµ . One can verify that this must be positive directly from the positivity conditions
on Λµν (z|z 0 ) and we go through the details in appendix A. A common choice for Oµ would be the set of operators
Lµ = {I, Lα } appearing in the master equation.
The inequality in Equation (15) turns out to be especially useful since it can be used to define a (pseudo) inner
product on a vector of operators with components Oµ via
Z h i
†
hŌ1 , Ō2 i = dzdz 0 Tr Λµν (z|z 0 )O1µ %(z 0 )O2ν (16)
p
where ||Ō|| = hŌ, Ōi ≥ 0 due to (15). Technically this is not positive definite, but this shall not be important for
our purpose. Taking the combination Oµ = ||Ō2 ||2 O1µ − hŌ1 , Ō2 iO2µ for vectors O1µ , O2µ , positivity of the norm
gives

||Ō||2 = ||Ō2 ||2 Ō1 − hŌ1 , Ō2 iŌ2 ||2 = ||Ō2 ||2 ||Ō1 ||2 ||Ō2 ||2 − |hŌ1 , Ō2 i|2 ≥ 0,


(17)

and as long as ||Ō2 || =

6 0 we have a Cauchy- Schwartz inequality

||Ō1 ||2 ||Ō2 ||2 − |hŌ1 , Ō2 i|2 ≥ 0. (18)

We can use (18) to get a trade-off between the observed diffusion and decoherence by picking O2µ = δµα Lα and
O1µ = bi (z − z 0 )hi Lµ , where L
i µ = {I, Lα } are the Lindblad operators appearing in the master equation. In this case
||Ō2 || = dzTr D0αβ Lα %L†β and one can verify using CQ Pawula theorem [72]3 that in order to have non-trivial
R

3 In particular, to reach this conclusion one can insert the CQ state into the CQ Cauchy-Schwartz inequality and repeat the proof of the
Pawula theorem [72], which must now hold once averaged over the state.
 7

back-reaction on the quantum system complete positivity demands that ||Ō2 || > 0, meaning the Cauchy-Schwartz
inequality in Equation (18) must hold. By using the short time moment expansion of Λµν (z|z 0 ) defined in Equation
(8) and using integration by parts, we then arrive at the observational trade-off between decoherence and diffusion
i Z 2
Z Z h 
 i∗ µν j †
 αβ †  i µα † 
dzTr 2b D2,ij b Lµ %(z)Lν dzTr D0 Lα %(z)Lβ ≥  dzTr b D1,i Lµ %(z)Lα  ,
 (19)

which must hold for any positive CQ state %(z). Stripping out the bi vectors, (19) is equivalent to the matrix positivity
condition
0  2hD2 ihD0 i − hD1br ihD1br i† , ∀%(z), (20)
where we define
Z h i Z Z
hD0 i = dzTr D0αβ Lα %(z)L†β , hD1br ii = dzTr D1,i
 µα  µν
Lµ %(z)L†α , hD2 iij = dzTr D2,ij Lµ %(z)L†ν .
 
(21)

Since (20) holds for all states, the tightest bound is provided by the infimum over all states
0  inf {2hD2 ihD0 i − hD1br ihD1br i† }. (22)
%(z)

The quantities hD2 i and hD0 i appearing in Equation (20) are related to observational quantities. In particular hD2 i
is the expectation value of the amount of classical diffusion which is observed and hD0 i is related to the amount of
decoherence on the quantum system. The expectation value of the back-reaction matrix hD1br i quantifies the amount
of back-reaction on the classical system. In the trivial case D1br = 0, Equation (20) places little restriction on the
diffusion and Lindbladian rates appearing on the left hand side. We already knew from [25, 26] that the D0αβ must be
a positive semi-definite matrix, and we also know that diffusion coefficients must be positive semi-definite. However,
in the non-trivial case, the larger the back-reaction exerted by the quantum system, the stronger the trade-off between
the diffusion coefficients and Lindbladian coupling. Equation (20) gives a general trade-off between observed diffusion
and Lindbladian rates, but we can also find a trade-off in terms of a theory’s coupling coefficients alone. We show in
appendix A 1 that the general matrix trade-off

D1br D0−1 D1br†  2D2 (23)

µν αµ
holds for the matrix whose elements are the couplings D2,ij , D1,i , D0αβ for any CQ dynamics. Moreover, (I −
D0 D0−1 )D1br = 0, which tells us that D0 cannot vanish if there is non-zero back-reaction. Equation (23) quantifies
the required amount of decoherence and diffusion in order for the dynamics to be completely positive. In Equation
(23), and throughout, D0−1 is the generalized inverse of D0αβ , since D0αβ is only required to be positive semi-definite.
In the special case of a single Lindblad operator α = 1 and classical degree of freedom, and when the only non-zero
couplings are D011 := D0 , D2,pp
00
:= 2D2 and D1,q0
= 1 this trade-off reduces to the condition D2 D0 ≥ 1 used in [21].
It is also useful to try to obtain an observational trade-off in terms of the total drift due to back-reaction as
calculated in Equation (11)
X Z  µν
hD1T ii = Lµ %(z)L†ν .

dzTr D1,i (24)
µν6=00

0µ αβ
It follows directly from Equation (20) that when the back-reaction is sourced by either D1,i or D1,i we can arrive at
4
the observational trade-off in terms of the total drift
0  8hD2 ihD0 i − hD1T ihD1T i† , ∀%(z), (25)
where the quantities appearing in Equation (25) are now all observational quantities, related to drift, decoherence
and diffusion as outlined in the previous subsection II B.
In the case where the back-reaction is Hamiltonian at first order in the sense of Equation (12), then (25) can be
written as
∂HI ∂HI †
hω · ihω · i  8hD2 ihD0 i, ∀%(z). (26)
∂~z ∂~z

4 We believe that (25) should hold more generally, though we don’t have a general proof.
 8

As a result, we can derive a trade-off between diffusion and decoherence for any theory which reproduces this classical
limit and treats one of the systems classically.
To summarize, whenever back-reaction of the quantum system on the classical system induces a force on the phase
space, then we have a trade-off between the amount of diffusion on the classical system and the strength of decoherence
on the quantum system (or more precisely the strength of the Lindbladian couplings D0αβ ). This can be expressed
both as a condition on the matrix of coupling co-efficients in the master equation, via Equation (23) or in terms of
observable quantities using Equation’s (20) and (25). In the case when the back-reaction is Hamiltonian, we further
have Equation (26). We would like to apply this trade-off to the case of gravity in the non-relativistic, Newtonian
limit. In order to do so, we will need to generalise the trade-off to the case of quantum fields interacting with classical
one, which we do in Section IV. The goal will be to understand the implications of treating the metric (or Newtonian
potential) as being classical by using the trade-off when the quantum back-reaction induces a force on the gravitational
field which, on expectation, is the same as the weak field limit of general relativity.

IV. TRADE OFF IN THE PRESENCE OF FIELDS

We would like to explore the trade-off in the gravitational setting and explore the consequences of treating the
gravitational field as being classical and matter quantum. Since gravity is a field theory, we must first discuss
classical-quantum master equations in the presence of fields. In the field theoretic case, both the Lindblad operators
and the phase space degrees of freedom can have spatial dependence, z(x), Lµ (x) and a general bounded CP map
which preserves the classicality of the two systems can be written [11]
Z
ρ(z, t) = dz 0 dxdyΛµν (z|z 0 , t; x, y)Lµ (x, z, z 0 )%(z 0 , 0)L†ν (y, z, z 0 ), (27)

where, as is usually the case with fields, in Equation (27) it should be implicitly understood that a smearing procedure
has been implemented. We elaborate on some of details when fields are introduced in appendix B. The condition for
(27) to be completely positive on all CQ states is
Z
dzdxdyA∗µ (x, z, z 0 )Λµν (z|z 0 ; x, y)Aν (y, z, z 0 ) ≥ 0 (28)

meaning that Λµν (x, y) can be viewed as a positive matrix in µν and a positive kernel in x, y. In the field
theoretic case one can still perform a Kramers-Moyal expansion and find a trade-off between the coefficients
D0 (x, y), D1 (x, y), D2 (x, y) appearing in the master equation. The coefficients now have an x, y dependence, due
to the spatial dependence of the Lindblad operators. The coefficients D1 (x, y), D2 (x, y) still have a natural interpre-
tation as measuring the amount of force (drift) and diffusion, whilst D0 (x, y) describes the purely quantum evolution
on the system and can be related to decoherence.
Using the positivity condition in (28) we find the same trade of between coupling constants in Equation (23) but
µν
where now D2 (x, y) is the (p + 1)n × (p + 1)n matrix-kernel with elements D2,ij (x, y), D1br (x, y) is the (p + 1)n × p
µβ
matrix-kernel with rows labeled by µi, columns labelled by β, and elements D1,i (x, y), and D0 (x, y) is the p × p
αβ 5
decoherence matrix-kernel with elements D0 (x, y). In the field theoretic trade off we are treating the objects in
Equation (23) as matrix-kernels, so that for any position dependent vector biµ (x), (D2 b)µi (x) = dyD2,ij µν
(x, y)bjν (y),
R
αβ
whilst for any position dependent vector aα (x), (D0 α)α (x) = dyD0 (x, y)αβ (y). Explicitly, we find that positivity
R
of the dynamics is equivalent to the matrix condition
  
2D2 (x, y) D1br (x, y) b(y)
Z
dxdy[b∗ (x), α∗ (x)] ≥0 (29)
D1br (x, y) D0 (x, y) α(y)

which should be positive for any position dependent vectors biµ (x) and aα (x). This is equivalent to trade-off between
coupling constants in Equation (23) if we view (23) as a matrix-kernel equation.
Though we make no assumption on the locality of the Lindbladian and diffusion couplings, we shall hereby assume
that the drift back-reaction is local, so that D1br (x, y) = δ(x, y)D1br (x). As we shall see in the next section, this is a
natural assumption if we want to have back-reaction which is given by a local Hamiltonian. However, one might not

5 Here i ∈ {1, . . . , n} α ∈ {1, . . . , p} and µ ∈ {1, . . . , p + 1},

 9

want to assume that the form of the Hamiltonian remains unchanged to arbitrarily small distances. With this locality
assumption, Equation (29) gives rise to the same trade-off of Equation (23), where the trade-off is to be interpreted
as a matrix kernel inequality. Writing this out explicitly we have

Z Z
µα βν µν
dxdyανi∗ (x)D1,i (x)(D0−1 )αβ (x, y)D1,j (x0 )ανi (x0 ) ≤ dxdy2αµi∗ (x)D2,ij (x, y)ανj (y), (30)

where asking that this inequality holds for all vectors αµi (x) is equivalent to the matrix-kernel trade-off condition of
Equation (23). We give two examples of master Equations satisfying the coupling constant trade-off in appendix D.
The decoherence-diffusion trade-off tells us how much diffusion and stochasticity is required to maintain coherence
when the quantum system back-reacts on the classical one. If the interaction between the classical and quantum
degrees of freedom is dictated by unbounded operators, such as the mass density, then there can exist states for which
the back-reaction can be made arbitrarily large. This is the case for a quantum particle interacting with its Newtonian
potential through its mass density at arbitrarily short distances. Hence, if one considers a particle in a superposition
of two peaked mass densities, then there can be an arbitrarily large response in the Newtonian potential around those
points, and either there must be an arbitrary amount of diffusion, or the decoherence must occur arbitrarily fast. The
former is unphysical, while the latter turns out to be the case in simple examples of theories such as those discussed
in Appendix E.
Since our goal is to experimentally constrain classical-quantum theories of gravity, we shall hereby ask that the
map (27) is CP when acting on all physical states ρ. If one allows for arbitrarily peaked mass distributions then the
coupling constant trade-off of Equation (30) should be satisfied. In the field theoretic case, we can similarly find an
observational trade-off, relating the expected value of the diffusion matrix hD2 (x, y)i to the expected value of the drift
in a physical state % as we did in Section III. This is done explicitly in Appendix B, using a field theoretic version of
the Cauchy-Schwartz inequality given by Equation (B16), we find
Z
2hD2 (x, x)i dx0 dy 0 hD0 (x0 , y 0 )i  hD1br (x)ihD1br (x)i† , (31)

where equation (33) is to be understood as a matrix inequality with entries

Z h i
hD0 (x, y)i = dzTr D0αβ Lα (x)%L†β (y) ,
Z
 µα
hD1br (x, y)ii = dzTr D1,i Lµ (x)%L†α (x) ,

(32)
Z h i
µν
hD2 (x, y)iij = dzTr D2,ij Lα (x)%L†β (y) .

0µ αβ
Similarly, when the back-reaction is sourced by either D1,i or D1,i it follows from Equation (31) we can arrive at the
observational trade-off in terms of the total drift due to back-reaction
Z
8hD2 (x, x)i dx0 dy 0 hD0 (x0 , y 0 )i  hD1T (x)ihD1T (x)i† , (33)

where
Z h i
hD1T (x)ii = 0α
dzTr D1,i (x)%L†α (x) + D1,i
α0 αβ
(x)Lα %(x) + D1,i (x)Lα (x)%L†β (x) . (34)

We shall now use the trade-off to study the consequences of treating the gravitational field classically. We will
consider the back-reaction of the mass on the gravitational field to be governed by the Newtonian interaction (or
more accurately, a weak field limit of General Relativity). We shall then find that experimental bounds on coherence
lifetimes for particles in superposition require large diffusion in the gravitational field in order to be maintained and
this can be upper bounded by gravitational experiments.
To summarise this section, we have derived the trade-off between decoherence and diffusion for classical-quantum
field theories, both in terms of coupling constants of the theory and in terms of observational quantities. This trade-off
puts tight observational constraints on classical theories of gravity which we now discuss.
 10

V. PHYSICAL CONSTRAINTS ON THE CLASSICALITY OF GRAVITY

In this section we apply the trade-off of Equation (29) to the case of gravity. Since the trade-offs derived in
the previous section depend only on the back-reaction, or drift term, they are insensitive to the particulars of the
theory. We shall consider the Newtonian, non-relativistic limit of a classical gravitational field which we reproduce
in Appendix C. It is in taking this limit where some care should be taken, since one is gauge fixing the full general
relativistic theory. We denote Φ to be the Newtonian potential and in the weak field limit of General Relativity, it
has a conjugate momenta we denote by πΦ . We assume

(i) The theory satisfies the assumptions used to derive the master equation as in Sections IV; in particular that
the theory be a completely positive norm-preserving Markovian map, and that we can perform a short-time
Kramers-Moyal expansion as in Appendix B.
(ii) We apply the theory to the weak field limit of General Relativity, where as recalled in Appendix C the Newtonian
potential interacts with matter through its mass density m(x),
Z
HI (Φ) = d3 xΦ(x)m(x). (35)

and the conjugate momentum to Φ satisfies

∇2 Φ
π̇Φ = − m(x) (36)
4πG
where in the c → ∞ limit we recover Poisson’s equation for the Newtonian potential. We assume this limit of
General Relativity is satisfied on expectation, at least to leading order.
(iii) In relating D0 to the decoherence rate of a particle in superposition, we shall assume that the state of interest
is well approximated by a state living in a Hilbert space of fixed particle number. We believe this is a mild
assumption: ordinary non-relativistic quantum mechanics is described via a single particle Hilbert space, and
we frequently place composite massive particles in superposition and they do not typically decay into multiple
particles.
(iv) We will assume that the diffusion kernel D2 (Φ, x, x0 ) does not depend on πΦ i.e. it is minimally coupled. This
is reasonable, since in the purely classical case matter couples to the Newtonian potential and not its conjugate
momenta.

With these assumptions, and treating the matter density as a quantum operator m̂(x), this tells us that in order
for the back-reaction term to reproduce the Newtonian interaction on average
Z  Z 
δ% X µν δ% †
Tr [{HI , %}] = Tr d3 x m̂(x) =− Tr d3 xD1,π (Φ, πΦ , x)Lµ (x) L (x) , (37)
δπΦ Φ
δπΦ ν
µν6=00

then we must pick

T
hD1,π φ
(Φ, πΦ , x)i = −hm̂(x)i, (38)
µα
meaning that the back-reaction matrix D1,π Φ
is non vanishing. In Appendix C we give examples of master equations
for which (38) is satisfied, but their details are irrelevant since we only require the expectation of the back-reaction
force to be the expectation value of the mass – a necessary condition for the theory to reproduce Newtonian gravity.
As a consequence of the coupling constant and observational trade-offs derived in Equations (30) and (31), a non-
zero D1,πΦ implies that there must be diffusion in the momenta conjugate to πΦ . This diffusion is equivalent to adding
a stochastic random process J(x, t) (the Langevin picture), to the equation of motion (36) to give

∇2 Φ
π̇Φ = − m(x) + u(Φ, m̂)J(t, x), (39)
4πG
where we allow some colouring to the noise via a function u(Φ, m̂) which can depend on Φ, and the matter distribution
m̂ (assumption (iv)). The noise process satisfies

Em,Φ [uJ(x, t)] = 0, Em,Φ [uJ(x, t)uJ(y, t0 )] = 2hD2 (x, y, Φ)iδ(t, t0 ), (40)
 11

where we have defined hD2 (x, y, Φ)i = Tr D2µν (x, y, Φ)Lµ (x)ρL†ν (y) , and ρ is the quantum state for the decohered
 
mass density. Here the m, Φ subscripts of Em,Φ allow for the possibility that the statistics of the noise process can
be dependent on the Newtonian potential and mass distribution of the particle. The restriction on Em,Φ [uJ(x, t)]
follows from assumption (ii). If uJ(x, t) is Gaussian, Equation (40) completely determines the noise process, but in
general, higher order correlations are possible, although they need not concern us here, since we are only interested
in bounding the effects due to D2 (x, y, Φ).
In the non-relativistic limit, where c → ∞, we can take π̇Φ to be small in comparison to the other terms, and we
recover Poisson’s equation for gravity, but with a stochastic contribution to the mass. This is precisely as expected
on purely physical grounds: in order to maintain coherence of any mass in superposition, there must be noise in the
Newtonian potential and this must be such that we cannot tell which element of the superposition the particle will
be in, meaning the Newtonian potential should look like it is being sourced in part by a random mass distribution.
In other words, the trade-off requires that the stochastic component of the coupling obscures the amount of mass m
at any point.
The solution to Equation (39) is given by

[m(x0 , t) − u(Φ, m̂)J(x0 , t)]

Z
Φ(t, x) ≈ −G d3 x0 , (41)
|x − x0 |

and a formal treatment of solutions to non-linear stochastic integrals of the form of Equation (39) can be found in
[74]. A higher precision calculation would involve a full simulation of CQ dynamics and in Appendix C we show in
full detail the evolution the Newtonian potential looks like for general continuous CQ theories using the continuous
unraveling of CQ dynamics introduced in [75]. We find the effects are qualitatively and quantitatively the same as
Equation (41).
In [72] it was shown that there are two classes of CQ dynamics, at least in the sense that there are those with
continuous trajectories in phase space and those which contain discrete jumps. For the class of continuous CQ models
(see [27] and appendix C 1 a), we know that J(x, t) should be described by a white noise process in time, and its
statistics should be independent of the mass density of the particle. We go through the full CQ calculation for the
continuous models in Appendix C27.
For the discrete class (see [11, 76] and Appendix C 1 b), J(x, t) can involve higher order moments, and will generally
be described by a jump process [24, 72]. It’s statistics can also depend on the mass density, since in general the
µν
diffusion matrix D2,ij couples to Lindblad operators. It is worth noting that the discrete CQ theories considered in
[11, 24, 34] generically suppress higher order moments, and often we expect that we can approximate the dynamics
by a Gaussian process, but this need not be the case in general.
This variation in Newtonian potential leads to observational consequences which can be used to experimentally
test and constrain CQ theories of gravity for various choices of kernels appearing in the CQ master equation. One
immediate consequence is that the variation in Newtonian potential leads to a variation of force experienced by a
RT
particle or composite mass via F~tot = − d3 xm(x)∇Φ(x). We can also estimate the time averaged force via T1 0 F~tot
R
where T is the time over which the force is measured and is the useful quantity when comparing with experiments.
Using Equation (41), in Appendix F 1 we find that the variance of the magnitude of the time averaged force experienced
by a particle in a Newtonian potential is given by

2G2 (~x − ~x0 ) · (~y − ~y 0 )

Z
2
σF = d3 xd3 yd3 x0 d3 y 0 m(x)m(y) hD2 (x0 , y 0 , Φ)i, (42)
T |x − x0 |3 |y − y 0 |3

where the variation is averaged over a time period T . We will use this to estimate the variation in precision measure-
ments of mass, such as modern versions of the Cavendish experiement for various choices of hD2 (x0 , y 0 , Φ)i.
On the other hand, experimentally measured decoherence rates can be related to D0 . We explore the calculation of
decoherence rates in gravity in detail in [77]. The important point is that the decoherence rate is dominated by the
background Newtonian potential Φb due to the Earth. In Appendix E, we show that for a mass whose quantum state
is a superposition of two states |Li and |Ri of approximately orthogonal mass densities mL (x), mR (x), and whose
separation we take to be larger than the correlation range of D0 (x, y), the decoherence rate is given by
Z
1
λ= dxdyD0αβ (x, y)(hL|L†β (y)Lα (x)|Li + hR|L†β (y)Lα (x)|Ri). (43)
2

Via the coupling constant trade-off, Equations (42) and (43) then give rise to a double sided squeeze on the coupling
D2 . Equation (42) upper bounds D2 in terms of the uncertainty of acceleration measurements seen in gravitational
torsion experiments, whilst the coupling constant trade-off Equation (43) lower bounds D2 in terms of experimentally
measured decoherence rates arising from interferometry experiments.
 12

We now show this for various choices of diffusion kernel, with the details given in Appendix F 1. The diffusion
coupling strength will be characterized by the coupling constant D2 , which we take to be a dimension-full quantity
with units kg 2 sm−3 , and is related to the rate of diffusion for the conjugate momenta of the Newtonian potential.
We upper bound D2 by considering the variation of the time averaged acceleration σa = σMF for a composite mass
M which contains N atoms which we treat as spheres of constant density ρ with radius rN and mass mN . We lower
bound D2 via the coupling constant trade-off of Equation (29) and then by considering bounds on the coherence time
for particles with total mass Mλ , which have typical length scale when in superposition Rλ and volume Vλ .
For continuous dynamics hD2 (x, y, Φ)i = D2 (x, y, Φ) since the diffusion is not associated to any Lindblad operators.
Let us now consider a very natural kernel, namely D2 (x, y; Φ) = D2 (Φ)δ(x, y) which is both translation invariant,
and does not create any correlations over space-like separated regions. In general, the squeeze will depend on the
functional choice of D2 (Φ) on the Newtonian potential. However, in the presence of a large background potential Φb ,
such as that of the Earth’s, we will often be able to approximate D2 (Φ) = D2 (Φb ). This is true for kernels which
depend on Φ and ∇Φ, though the approximation does not hold for all kernels, for example D2 ∼ −∇2 Φ of Equation
(D13) which creates diffusion only where there is mass density. For diffusion kernels D2 (Φb ) where the background
potential is dominant we find the promised squeeze on D2 (Φb )
σa2 N rN
4
T M2
2
≥ D2 ≥ λ , (44)
Vb G Vλ λ
where Vb is the volume of space over which the background Newtonian potential is significant. Vb enters since the
variation in acceleration is found to be
D2 G2
Z
σa2 ∼ 4 d3 x0 D2 (Φb ), (45)
rN N T
where the d3 x0 integral is over all space. This immediately rules out continuous theories with noise everywhere, i.e,
with a diffusion coefficient independent of the Newtonian potential since the integral will diverge.
Standard Cavendish type classical torsion balance experiments measure accelerations of the order 10−7 ms−2 , so
a very conservative bound is σa ∼ 10−7 ms−2 , whilst for a kg mass N ∼ 1026 and rN ∼ 10−15 m. Conservatively
taking Vb ∼ rE 2
h m3 where rE is the radius of the Earth and h is the atmospheric height gives D2 ≤ 10−41 kg 2 sm−3 .
The decoherence rate λ is bounded by various experiments [78]. Typically, the goal of such experiments is to witness
interference patterns of molecules which are as massive as possible. Taking a conservative bound on λ, for example
that arising from the interferometry experiment of [54] which saw coherence in large organic fullerene molecules with
total mass Mλ = 10−24 kg over a timescale of 0.1s, gives an upper bound on the decoherence rate λ < 101 s−1 .
Fullerene molecules have typical size 10−9 m. After passing through the slits the molecule becomes delocalized in
the transverse direction on the order of 10−7 m before being detected. Since the interference effects are due to
the superposition in the transverse x direction, which is the direction of alignment of the gratings, it seems like a
reasonable assumption to take the size of the wavepacket in the remaining y, z direction to be the size of the fullerene,
since we could imagine measuring the y, z directions without effecting the coherence. We therefore take the volume
Vλ ∼ 10−9 10−9 10−7 m3 = 10−25 m3 , which gives D2 ≥ 10−24 kg 2 sm−3 , and suggests that classical-quantum theories
of gravity with local continuous noise need to have a dependence on the Newtonian potential which will suppress the
diffusion by 20 orders of magnitude. This happens to be the case for the kernel from Section D 3 and whose motivation
comes from the constraint algebra [76].
On the other hand, the discrete models appear less constrained due to the suppression of the noise away from the
mass density. For example consider the local discreteqjumping models, such as the one givenq in Section C 1 b which
3
lP D2 (Φb )
have hD2 (x, y, Φb )i = mP m(x), where mP = ~c
G is the Planck mass and lP = ~G
c3 is the Planck length,
required to ensure D2 has the units of kg 2 sm−3 . We find the squeeze on D2
σa2 N rN
4
T lP3 Mλ
≥ D2 ≥ , (46)
mN G2 mP λ
and plugging in the numbers tells us that discrete theories of classical gravity are not ruled out by experiment and
l3
we find 10−1 kgs ≥ mPP D2 ≥ 10−25 kgs.
We can also consider other noise kernels, with examples and some discussion given in Section D. A natural kernel
is D2 (x, y, Φb ) = −lP2 D(Φb )∇2 δ(x, y). The inverse Lindbladian kernel satisfying the coupling constants trade-off is
to zeroeth order in Φ(x), the Diosi-Penrose kernel D0 (x, y, Φb ) = D|x−y|
0 (Φb )
. For this choice of dynamics, we find the
squeeze for D2 in terms of the variation in acceleration
σa2 N rN
3
T 2 Mλ2
≥ l P D 2 ≥ . (47)
G2 Rλ λ
 13

1/3
Using the same numbers as for the local continuous model, with Rλ ∼ Vλ ∼ 10−9 m we find that classical torsion
experiments upper bound D2 by 10−9 kg 2 sm−1 ≥ lP2 D2 , whilst interferometry experiments bound D2 from below via
lP2 D2 ≥ 10−40 kg 2 sm−1 .
Equations (44), (46) and (47) show that classical theories of gravity are squeezed by experiments from both ways.
We have here been extremely conservative, and we anticipate that further analysis, as well as near term experiments,
can tighten the bounds by orders of magnitude. There are several proposals for table-top experiments to precisely
measure gravity, some of which have recently been performed, and which could give rise to tighter upper bounds on
D2 . Some of these experiments involve millimeter-sized masses whose gravitational coupling is measured via torsional
pendula [56, 57], or rotating attractors [58]. With such devices, the gravitational coupling between small masses can
be measured while limiting the amount of other sources of noise. There are proposals for further mitigating the noise
due to the environment, including the inertial noise, gas particles collisions, photon scattering on the masses, and
curvature fluctuations due to other sources [79–81]. Other experiments are based on interference between masses;
for example, atomic interferometers allow for the measurement of the curvature of space-time over a macroscopic
superposition [82, 83].
We can get stronger lower bounds via improved coherence experiments. Typically, the goal of such experiments is
to witness interference patterns of molecules which are as massive as possible, while here, we see that the experimental
bound on CQ theories is generically obtained by maximizing the coherence time for massive particles with as small
wave-packet size Vλ .
Thus far in this section we have considered local effects on particles due to the diffusion. While this enables us to
rule out some types of theories, the bounds are generally weak if one wanted to rule out all of them. However, it may
be possible to do so via cosmological considerations. In attempting to place experimental constraints on this diffusion,
it is also worth considering other regimes, such as longer range effects which might be detected by gravitational wave
detectors such as LIGO.
In Appendix F 2, we begin a study of the cosmological effects of the diffusion by studying the observational trade-off
0µ αβ
in Equation (33). For the class of CQ theories sourced by either the D1,i term, or the D1,i this gives a lower bound
for the diffusion of the conjugate momentum in terms of the mass density of the particle and its decoherence rate λ

dσπ2 Φ (x) |hm(x)i|2

≥ , (48)
dt 8λ
which leads to an estimate of the production rate of stochastic waves in terms of their gravitational kinetic energy.
This can be lower bounded in terms of experimentally decoherence rates

c2 Gπ|hm(x)i|2
Z
d∆Ē
≥ d3 x . (49)
dt 12λ
The diffusion is akin to the stochastic production of gravitational waves, but these waves need not be transverse (see
Appendix F). One advantage of studying this regime, is that Equation (49) is a bound which holds very generally, and
which is independent of the choice of kernel, since the kinetic energy rate is lower bounded in terms of a experimentally
measured decoherence rate.
Since fullerene interference experiments require d∆ dt
Ē
∼ 10−19 Js−1 over the wave-packet size of nucleons, this
implies that the energy density of waves must be produced at a rate of at least ∼ 105 Js−1 m−3 . If this was produced
over all space, as required by the diffusion kernel D2 (x, x0 ) = D2 δ(x, x0 ) (already ruled out by precision Cavendish
experiments), this gives an apparent energy density in the ball park of 1022 J/m3 accumulated over the age of the
universe. Since the observed expansion rate of the universe puts its energy density at 10−9 J/m3 , this discrepancy
would appear to rule out continuous realisations of classical gravity with the diffusion kernel δ(x, x0 ). This can be
seen as a specific instance of diffusion kernels D2 (x, x0 ) which diverge as x → x0 , something we comment on in Section
D. However, even here, care should be taken, partly because our estimate is non-relativistic6 , and partly because
our understanding of cosmology requires some degree of modesty – after all, quantum field theory predicts an energy
density of 10113 J/m3 , and yet we do not see this reflected in the acceleration of the universe.
We leave a detailed study of the effect of gravitational diffusion on LIGO to future work. It suffices to mention that
the effect will again depend on the form of the kernel D2 (x, x0 ). Our estimates [84] suggest that local effects from table-
top experiments currently place stronger bound on gravitational theories than LIGO currently does. In particular,
unlike for gravitational wave measurements, which are reasonably high frequency events requiring extraordinary high
precision in relative displacement of the arm length from its average, it is preferential to have a lower precision

6 We find that extrapolating too far into the past runs afoul of the gauge fixing condition used to derive the Newtonian limit.
 14

measurement, but which occurs over a longer time period to allow for the diffusion in path length to build up, and
with a smaller uncertainty in the average length of the arm itself. Furthermore, since the LIGO arm is kept in a
vacuum, we do not expect strong bounds on discrete models where the diffusion is associated to an energy density.

VI. DISCUSSION

A number of direct proposals to test the quantum nature of gravity are expected to come online in the next
decade or two. These are based on the detection of entanglement between mesoscopic masses inside matter-wave
interferometers [59–65, 67]. For these experiments, some theoretical assumptions are needed: one requires that it is
only gravitons which travel between the two masses and mediate the creation of entanglement. If this is the case,
then the onset of entanglement implies that gravity is not a classical field. These can be thought of as experiments
which if successful, would confirm the quantum nature of gravity (although other alternatives to quantum theory are
possible [85]).
Here, we come from the other direction, by supposing that gravity is instead classical, and then exploring the
consequences. Theories in which gravity is fundamentally classical were thought to have been ruled out by various no-
go theorems and conceptual difficulties. However, these no-go theorems are avoided if one allows for non-deterministic
coupling as in [11, 20–24, 27, 34, 72]. We have here proven that this feature is indeed necessary, and made it quantitative
by exploring the consequences of complete positivity on any dynamics which couples quantum and classical degrees
of freedom. Complete positivity is required to ensure the probabilities of measurement outcomes remain positive
throughout the dynamics. We have shown that any theory which preserves probabilities and treats one system
classically, is required to have fundamental decoherence of the quantum system, and diffusion in phase space, both
of which are signatures of information loss. Using a CQ version of the Kramers-Moyal expansion, we have derived
a trade-off between decoherence on the quantum system, and the system’s diffusion in phase space. The trade-off is
expressed in terms of the strength of the back-reaction of the quantum system on the classical one. We have derived
the trade-off both in terms of coupling constants of the theory, and in terms of observational quantities that can be
measured experimentally.
In the case of gravity, the observational trade-off places a lower bound on the rate of diffusion of the gravitational
degrees of freedom as expressed by Equation (48) in terms of the decoherence rate of particles in superposition. We
find that theories which treat gravity as fundamentally classical, are not ruled out by current experiments, however
we have been able to rule out a broad parameter space of such theories. This is done partly through table-top
observations via Equations (44), (46) and (47). Given any diffusion kernel, we can compute the inaccuracy of mass
measurements due to fluctuations in the gravitational field, and using the trade-off, we can derive a bound on the
associated decoherence rate. This allows us to rule out broad classes of theories in terms of their diffusion kernel.
For example, we are able to rule out a number of theories which are continuous in phase space. Then, using the
trade-off of Equation (49), we saw that there was some tension with cosmological observations and kernels such as
that of Equation (D11) and (D12), which produce diffusion over all space. However, we are not confident enough in
our understanding of cosmology in CQ theories to rule these out.
Any theory which treats gravity classically has fairly limited freedom to evade the effects of the trade-off. There
is freedom to choose the diffusion or decoherence kernels D2 (x, x0 ) and D0 (x, x0 ), but the trade-off restricts one
in terms of the other. Then, because of the results proven in [72], one can consider two classes of theory, those
which are continuous realisations and whose diffusion can only depend on the gravitational degrees of freedom, and
discrete theories whose diffusion can also depend directly on the matter fields. Examples of both classes of theory
are given in Appendix C. Finally, one could consider theories which do not reproduce the weak field limit of General
Relativity to all distances, namely we could imagine that the interaction Hamiltonian of Equation (35) does not hold
to arbitrarily short distances, or arbitrarily high mass densities. This would correspond to modifying D1 (x, x0 ) in
some way, either by making it slightly non-local, or by disallowing arbitrarily high mass densities, or by including an
additional contribution such as the friction term discussed in C 1 a. All of these modifications would seem to violate
Lorentz invariance in some way7 .
Here, we have only given an order of magnitude estimate of when gravitational diffusion will lead to appreciable
deviations from Newtonian gravity or General Relativity. We have done so in a number of regimes. The most
promising being table-top experiments which precisely measure the mass of an object. This is an area which is
important from the perspective of weight standards, for example those undertaken by NIST on the 1kg mass standard
K20 and K4 [86]. The increased precision and measuring time of Kibble Balances [87] and atomic interferometers

7 This may only be a concern if it results in any inconsistency with low energy observations, since a theory of quantum gravity would also
likely have an anomaly at the Planck scale.
 15

[82, 83, 88, 89] would make such measurements an ideal testing ground, both to further constrain the diffusion kernel,
and to look for diffusion effects, whose dependence on the test mass is outlined in Appendix F. Here, we have found
that the time T over which results of the measurement are made, affects the strength of the bound, and it would be
helpful if future experiments reported this value. Since we have found that CQ theories predict an uncertainty in
mass measurements it is perhaps intriguing that different experiments to measure Newton’s constant G yield results
whose relative uncertainty differ by as much as 5 · 10−4 m3 kg−1 s−2 , which is more than an order of magnitude larger
than the average reported uncertainty [47–49]. If one were to try and explain the discrepancy in G measurements
via gravitational diffusion, then for all the kernels we studied in Section V we find that the variation in acceleration
depends on √1N the number of nucleons in the test mass, so that masses with smaller volume should yield larger
uncertainty and this would be the effect to look for in measurement discrepancies. The relatively large uncertainty in
such measurements, also makes it challenging for table-top experiments to place strong upper bounds on gravitational
diffusion.
We have also estimated the effect that this diffusion would have on the energy density of the universe, and in
the production of stochastic waves in terms of gravitational kinetic energy in the weak field limit. We have found
that spatially uncorrelated and continuous realisations of classical gravity which reproduce General Relativity at short
distances, appear to be ruled out by cosmological considerations as well, since the energy density of the stochastic wave
contribution is high enough that it should effect the expansion rate of the universe. However, this is a regime where
we do not understand the theory well, and so we are cautious about making too strong a claim. We have also found
that the stochastic production of gravitational kinetic energy waves is in a regime which could be detectable by LIGO,
an effect which constrains the form of D2 (x, x0 ). However, initial estimates suggest that this is less constraining than
table top experiments. For this to be definitive, a more precise understanding of gauge artifacts and of the dynamics
that the diffusion induces on the Newtonian potential is required, especially over longer time scales. How this diffusion
might effect dynamics over galactic scales and longer times, requires a fuller General Relativistic treatment, a study
which we undertake in [90] where we find that it causes deviations from what general relativity predicts.
Turning to the other side of the trade-off, improved decoherence times would further squeeze theories in which
gravity remains classical. While a current experimental challenge is to demonstrate interference patterns using larger
and larger mass particles, we here find that some of our bounds depend on the expectation of the particle’s mass
density, either in terms of hm2 (x)i/λ, or in ways which depend on the particular kernel. Thus interference experiments
with particles of high mass density rather than mass can be preferable. There are also kernels, for which the relevant
quantity is the expectation of the mass density, which will depend on the size of the wave-packet used in the interference
experiment, a quantity which is rarely obtainable from most papers which report on such experiments. While this
dependence might initially appear counter-intuitive, it follows from the fact that in order to relate the trade-off in
terms of coupling constants to observational quantities, and in particular, the decoherence rate, we took expectation
values of the relevant quantities to get a trade-off in terms of only averages. And indeed the decoherence rate, which
is an expectation value, can easily depend on the wave-packet density, as we see from examples is Section E.
Since we here show that all theories which treat gravity classically necessarily decohere the quantum system, another
constraint on theories which treat gravity classically is given by constraints on fundamental decoherence. These are
usually constrained by bounds on anomalous heating of the quantum system [91]. However, these constraints are not
in themselves very strong, since fundamental decoherence effects can be made arbitrarily weak. In the simplified model
in Appendix C, the strength of the decoherence depends on the strength of the gravitational field, thus, constraints
due to heating [91–104] can be suppressed, either by scaling the Lindbladian coupling constants, or by having strong
decoherence effects more pronounced near stronger gravitational fields such as near black holes where one expects
information loss to occur. The necessity for decoherence to heat the quantum system is further weaked by the fact
that the dynamics are not Markovian on the quantum fields, if one integrates out the classical degrees of freedom,
space-time acts as a memory. This potentially captures some of the non-Markovian features advocated in [105], who
recognised that Markovianity is a key assumption in attempts to rule out fundamental decoherence or information
loss. Here however, we see that there is less freedom than one might imagine. If the Lindbladian coupling constants
are made small to reduce heating, the gravitational diffusion must be large. Thus, heating constraints which place
bounds on D0 (x, x0 ) place additional constraints on D2 (x, x0 ).
While the absence of diffusion could rule out theories where gravity is fundamentally classical, the presence of such
deviations, at least on short time scales, might not by itself be a confirmation of the classical nature of gravity. Such
effects could instead be caused by quantum theories of gravity whose classical limit is effectively described by [11] or
perhaps [106]. In other words, one might expect some gravitational diffusion, because from an effective theory point
of view, one is in a regime where space-time is behaving classically. However, the trade-off we have derived is a direct
consequence of treating the background space-time as fundamentally classical. In a fully quantum theory of gravity,
the interaction of the gravitational field with particles in a superposition of two trajectories will cause decoherence,
but coherence can then be restored when the two trajectories converge. This is what happens when electrons interact
with the electromagnetic field while passing through a diffraction grating, yet still form an interference pattern at the
 16

screen. This is a non-Markovian effect, and the trade-off we derived is a direct consequence of the positivity condition,
which is a direct consequence of the Markovian assumption. In the non-Markovian theory where General Relativity is
treated classically, one still expects the master equation to take the form found in [11], but without the matrix whose
elements are Dnµν needing to be positive semi-definite [107, 108].

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We would like thank Sougato Bose, Joan Camps, Matt Headrick, Isaac Layton, Juan Maldacena, Andrea Russo,
Andy Svesko and Bill Unruh for valuable discussions and Lajos Diósi and Antoine Tilloy for their very helpful
comments on an earlier draft of this manuscript JO is supported by an EPSRC Established Career Fellowship, and a
Royal Society Wolfson Merit Award, C.S. and Z.W.D. acknowledges financial support from EPSRC. This research was
supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. NSF PHY11-25915 and by the Simons Foundation
It from Qubit Network. Research at Perimeter Institute is supported in part by the Government of Canada through
the Department of Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada and by the Province of Ontario through
the Ministry of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade.

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Appendix A: Positivity conditions and the trade-off between decoherence and diffusion

In this section, we will introduce two forms of positivity conditions used to prove the decoherence diffusion trade-off.
The first inequality we would like to introduce is
Z
dzA∗µ (z, z 0 )Λµν (z|z 0 , δt)Aν (z, z 0 ) ≥ 0, (A1)

which holds for any Aµ (z, z 0 ) for which (A1) is well defined: i.e, so that the distributional derivatives in (A1) are well
defined.
We can derive the positivity condition (A1) from the positivity of Λµν (z|z 0 ), which must be a positive semi-definite
matrix in µν. More precisely, the eigenvalues of Λµν (z|z 0 ), which we denote by λµ (z|z 0 ) must be positive. They must
 19

be positive in the distributional sense, since we allow for the case that λµ (z|z 0 ) is a positive distribution, for example
λ0 (z|z 0 ) ∼ δ(z − z 0 ). Hence we require
Z
dzdz 0 λµ (z|z 0 )P (z, z 0 ) (A2)

is positive for any positive smearing function P (z, z 0 ). Since each λµ must be positive, we can also pick a different
smearing function for each µ, so that
Z
dzdz 0 λµ (z|z 0 )Pµ (z, z 0 ) (A3)

should be positive for any vector Pµ (z, z 0 ) with all positive entries. We can then write the matrix Λµν (z|z 0 ) in terms
of its eigenvalues
Λµν (z|z 0 ) = Uρµ† (z|z 0 )λρ (z|z 0 )Uρν (z|z 0 ). (A4)
We can then see the positivity of (A1) directly since
Z Z Z
dzA∗µ (z, z 0 )Λµν (z|z 0 , δt)Aν (z, z 0 ) = dz(U A)†µ (z|z 0 )λµ (z|z 0 )(U A)µ (z, z 0 ) = dz|(U A)µ |2 (z, z 0 )λµ (z|z 0 ) (A5)

which is positive as a consequence of (A3).

As a consequence of Equation (A1) being positive, we also know that
Z 
Tr dzΛµν (z|z 0 )Oµ (z, z 0 )ρ(z 0 )Oν† (z, z 0 ) ≥ 0 (A6)

will be positive for any vector of operators (potentially phase space dependent) Oµ (z, z 0 ). This follows from the
cyclicity of the trace and the fact that Λµν (z|z 0 )Oν† (z, z 0 )Oµ (z, z 0 ) will be a positive operator so long as (A1) holds.
A common choice of Oµ would be the Lindblad operators Lµ appearing in the master equation.
The inequality in Equation (A1) proves useful to derive positivity conditions on the coupling constants appearing
in the master equation, whilst (A6) is useful in deriving the observational trade-off for the continuous master equation
as we shall now discuss.

1. General trade-off between decoherence and diffusion coefficients

We can get a general trade-off between the decoherence and diffusion coefficients which appear in the master
equation, arriving at a trade-off between the decoherence and diffusion coefficients in terms of the back-reaction drift
µα
coefficient D1,i .
Consider (A1), with Aµ = δµα aα + biµ (z − z 0 )i . By integrating by parts over the phase space degrees of freedom, we
find
µν j i∗ µβ ∗ αµ i ∗ αβ
2bi∗
µ D2,ij bν + bµ D1,i aβ + aα D1,i bµ + aα D0 aβ ≥ 0. (A7)
Taking i ∈ {1, . . . , n} α ∈ {1, . . . , p} and µ ∈ {1, . . . , p + 1}, we can write this as a matrix positivity condition
  
2D2 D1br b
[b∗ , α∗ ] ≥0 (A8)
D1br D0 α
µν
where D2 is the (p + 1)n × (p + 1)n matrix with elements D2,ij , D1br is the (p + 1)n × p matrix with rows labeled by
µi and columns labelled by β with elements D1,i and D0 is the p × p decoherence matrix with elements D0αβ . D1,i
µβ br

describes the quantum back-reacting components of the drift. Equation (A8) is equivalent to the condition that the
((p + 1)n + p) × ((p + 1)n + p) matrix
 
2D2 D1br
 0. (A9)
D1br D0
Since we know D2 and D0 must be positive semi-definite, we know from Schur decomposition that
2D2  D1br D0−1 D1br† , (A10)
and (I − D0 D0 −1)D1br= 0, where D0 is the generalized inverse of D0 . Furthermore, if D0 vanishes, then clearly D1br
must also vanish in order for (A9) to be positive semi-definite.
 20

Appendix B: Classical-quantum dynamics with fields

In this section, we describe CQ dynamics in the case where the Lindblad operators and the phase-space degrees of
freedom can have spatial dependence z(x), Lµ (x).
For the case of fields, operators O(x) constructed out of local fields φ(x) will in general be unbounded and hence
the Stinespring dilation theorem does not hold. This problem is a common one in the study of algebraic quantum field
theory and we can get around it by considering the case in which operators are of interest are obtained by smearing
the local fields over
R bounded functionals F . For example, we can first smear the local fields fields over a smearing
function f , φf = dxφ(x)f (x) and then consider bounded functions of φf such as F (φf ) = eiφf . In doing this we
can write a CQ version of the Stinespring dilation theorem exactly and proceed along the lines of [11] to show that
any completely positive CQ map can be written in the form
Z
ρ0 (z) = dzdxdyΛµν (z|z 0 ; x, y)Lµ (x, z, z 0 )%(z 0 )L†ν (y, z, z 0 ), (B1)

where the positvity condition states

Z
dzdxdyA∗µ (x, z, z 0 )Λµν (z|z 0 ; x, y)Aν (y, z, z 0 ) ≥ 0. (B2)

We shall assume that we deal with dynamics which can be written in Lindblad form, as is usually assumed in the
unbounded case [109].

1. CQ Kramers-Moyal expansion for fields

Just as in section II A, we can formally introduce the moments of the transition amplitude
Z
µν
Mn,i 1 ...in
(w 1 , . . . wn ; x, y, δt) = DzΛµν (z|z 0 ; x, y, δt)(z − z 0 )i1 (w1 ) . . . (z − z 0 )in (wn ) (B3)

which we assume to exist; which might involve a smearing of the operators z(x). Defining L0 (x) = δ(x)I, we can
µν
define the coefficients Dn,i 1 ...in
implicitly via
µν
Mn,i1 ...in
(z 0 , w1 , . . . wn ; x, y, δt) = δ0µ δ0ν + δtn!Dn,i
µν
1 ...in
(w1 , . . . wn ; x, y, δt). (B4)
The characteristic function then takes the form
Z
0
R
C (u, z ; x, y) = Dzei dwu(w)·(z(w)−z (w)) Λµν (z|z 0 ; x, y)
µν 0
(B5)

and expanding out the exponential this takes the form

∞ Z
X ui (w1 ) . . . uin (wn ) µν
C µν (u, z 0 ; x, y) = dw1 . . . dwn Mn,i1 ...in (z 0 , w1 , . . . wn ; x, y, δt) (B6)
n=0
n!

performing the inverse Fourier transform, allows us to write the transition amplitude in terms of functional derivatives
of the delta function
∞ Z µν
0
X Mn,i 1 ...in
(z 0 , w1 , . . . wn ; x, y, δt) δn
µν
Λ (z|z ; x, y, δt) = dw1 . . . dwn δ(z, z 0 ) (B7)
n=0
n! δzi1 (w1 ) . . . zi0n (wn )
0

and we can use this to write a CQ master equation in the form

∞ Z
∂%(z, δt) X δn
dw1 . . . dwn (−1)n 00


= Dn,i 1 ...in
(z, w1 , . . . wn )%(z)
∂t n=1
δzi1 (w1 ) . . . zin (wn )
Z
1
− i[H, %(z)] + dxdyD0αβ (z; x, y)Lα (x)%(z)Lβ (y) − D0αβ (z; x, y){L†β (y)Lα (x), %}
2
∞ X Z n
X δ µν
dxdydw1 . . . dwn (−1)n (z, w1 , . . . wn ; x, y)Lµ (x)%(z)L†ν (y) .


+ Dn,i 1 ...in
n=0
δzi1 (w1 ) . . . zin (wn )
µν6=00
(B8)
 21

Since we are interested in studying dynamics with local back-reaction, we shall hereby take D1µν (z, w; x, y) =
D1µν (x)δ(x, y)δ(x, w).By the decoherence diffusion trade-off, which we derive in the next subsection8 , this also means
µν
that the diffusion matrix D2,ij (z, w1 , w2 , x, y) is lower bounded by the matrix D1µα (x)(D0−1 )αβ (x, y)D1βν∗ (y)δ(w1 , x)δ(w2 , y).
Without loss of generality we thus take D2 (z, w1 , w2 , x, y) = D2 (z, x, y)δ(x, w1 )δ(y, w2 )

2. Trade-off between diffusion and decoherence couplings in the presence of fields

In the field theoretic case the positivity condition is given Rby Equation (B2) and we can find a trade-off between
decoherence and diffusion by considering Aµ (x) = δµα αα (x) + dxbiµ (x)(z − z 0 )(x). So that
Z
µν µβ ∗ αµ ∗ αβ
dxdy2bi∗ j i∗ i
µ (x)D2,ij (x, y)bν (y) + bµ (x)D1,i (x, y)aβ (y) + aα (x)D1,i (x, y)bµ (y) + aα (x)D0 (x, y)aβ (y) ≥ 0 (B9)

µν µν αµ αµ
where we use the shorthand notation D2,ij (z, x, y) := D2,ij (x, y) and similarly D1,i (z; x, y) := D1,i (x, y).
Taking i ∈ {1, . . . , n} α ∈ {1, . . . , p} and µ ∈ {1, . . . , p + 1}, we can write this as a matrix positivity condition
  
2D2 (x, y) D1br (x, y) b(y)
Z
dxdy[b∗ (x), α∗ (x)] ≥0 (B10)
D1br (x, y) D0 (x, y) α(y)
µν
where D2 (x, y) is the (p + 1)n × (p + 1)n matrix-kernel with elements D2,ij (x, y), D1br (x, y) is the (p + 1)n × p matrix-
µβ
kernel with rows labeled by µi and columns labelled by β with elements D1,i (x, y) and D0 (x, y) is the p×p decoherence
matrix-kernel with elements D0αβ (x, y). D1,i
br
describes the quantum back-reacting components of the drift.
Equation (B10) is equivalent to the condition that the ((p + 1)n + p) × ((p + 1)n + p) matrix of operators
 
2D2 D1br
0 (B11)
D1br D0

be positive semi-definite. Here we are R viewing the objects of (B11) as matrix-kernels, so that for any position
dependent vector biµ (x), (D2 b)µi (x) = dyD2,ij
µν
(x, y)bjν (y).
Since we know D2 and D0 must be positive semi-definite, we know from Schur decomposition that

2D2  D1br D0−1 D1br† (B12)

and

(I − D0 D0−1 )D1br = 0, (B13)

where D0−1 is the generalized inverse of D0 . Furthermore, from Equation (B13), we see if D0 vanishes, then clearly
D1br must also vanish in order for (B11) to be positive semi-definite.

3. Observational trade-off in the presence of fields

We can use the same methods to arrive at an observational trade-off using the field theoretic version of the Cauchy-
Schwartz inequality in (18). This arises from the positivity of
Z 
Tr dzdz 0 dxdyΛµν (z|z 0 , x, y)Oµ (z, z 0 , x)ρ(z 0 )Oν† (z, z 0 , y) ≥ 0 (B14)

for any local vector of CQ operators Oµ (z, z 0 , x). We have to be careful, since (B14) is not in general well defined
since Oµ may not be trace-class. We hence assume that we consider states ρ(z) and operators Oµ (z, z 0 , x) for which
(B14) is well defined. Since we are interested in getting an observational trade-off we expect this to always be the
case for physical classical-quantum states ρ(z).

8 α α (x) + dwbiµ (x, w)(z − z 0 )(x, w) and apply the same methods as in subsection
R
More precisely, take Equation (B2) with Aµ (x) = δµ α
B 2.
 22

We shall use Equation (B14) to arrive at a (pseudo) inner product on a vector of operators Oµ via
Z h i
†
hŌ1 , Ō2 i = dzdz 0 dxdyTr Λµν (z|z 0 x, y)O1µ (x)%(z 0 )O2ν (y) (B15)
p
where ||Ō|| = hŌ, Ōi ≥ 0 due to (B14). Technically this is not positive definite, but again, this will not worry us.
Hence, so long as ||Ō2 || 6= 0, which holds due to the CQ inequality derived in the derivation of the Pawula theorem
[72], we again have a Cauchy- Schwartz inequality

||Ō1 ||2 ||Ō2 ||2 − |hŌ1 , Ō2 i|2 ≥ 0. (B16)

Choosing O1,µ (x) = δµα Lα (x) and O2,µ (x) = dx0 bi (x)(z − z 0 )i (x)Lµ (x), one finds
R

Z h i
||Ō1 ||2 = dzdxdyTr D0αβ (z; x, y)Lα (x)%(z)L†β (y) := hD0 i
Z
µν
||Ō2 || = 2 dzdxdyTr bj∗ (x)D2,ij
2
(z; x, y)Lµ (x)%(z)L†ν (y)bi (y)
 
(B17)
Z Z
|hŌ1 , Ō2 i|2 = | dzdxTr bi∗ (x)D1,i αν
(z; x)Lα (x)%(z)L†ν (x) |2 := |h dxbi∗ (x)D1,i
br
(x)i|2
 

Taking the limit bi (x) → δ(x, x̄)bi (x̄), we arrive at a local trade-off between the diffusion, drift and the total decoher-
ence. In particular, using B17, the definitions of the expectation values of couplings defined in (32) and the fact that
for back-reaction the expectation value of D0 cannot vanish, we arrive at the observational trade-off of Equation (33)

bi (x̄) 2hD2,ij (x̄, x̄)ihD0 i − |hD1,i

br
(x̄)i|2 bj (x̄) ≥ 0
 
(B18)

which we write in matrix form as

2hD2 (x̄, x̄)ihD0 i  hD1br (x̄)ihD1br (x̄)i† . (B19)

0µ αβ
It then follows directly from Equation (B19) that when the back-reaction is sourced by either D1,i or D1,i components
we can arrive at the observational trade-off in terms of the total drift

8hD2 (x̄, x̄)ihD0 i  hD1T (x̄)ihD1T (x̄)i† , (B20)

where in Equation (B20) recall that the definition of hD1T (x̄)i† is given by Equation (34) in the main body.

4. A spatially averaged observational trade-off

It is also useful to note that one can arrive at a spatially averaged observational trade-off which can be used to
bound all of the elements of the diffusion matrix, not just its diagonals. Specifically, taking Equation (B17) with
bi (x) = bi a constant, we arrive at the trade-off
Z Z Z
8 dxdyhD2 (x, y)ihD0 i  h dxD1 (x)ih dxD1T (x)i† ,
T
(B21)

where we define the expectation matrix

Z
 µν
(z; x, y)Lµ (x)%(z)L†ν (y) .

hD2 (x, y)iij = dzTr D2,ij (B22)

For the Newtonian limit discussed in the main body this bounds the diffusion in terms of the total mass of the particle
M2
Z
dxdyhD2 (x, y)i ≥ . (B23)
16λ
We can also arrive at a trade-off in terms of the effective Newtonian potential sourced by the masses by taking
1
bi (x) = |x̄−x| . In this case, we find the trade-off

hD2 (x, y)i D1T (x) DT (x) †

Z Z Z
8 dxdy hD0 i  h dx ih dx 1 i (B24)
|x̄ − x||x̄ − y| |x̄ − x| |x̄ − x|
 23

which for the Newtonian limit gives a trade-off between the diffusion matrix and the effective Newtonian potential of
the particle as sourced by its expectation value

| dx h|x̄−x|
m̂(x)i 2
R
Z
hD2,πΦ πΦ (x, y)i | |hΦ̂(x̄)i|2
dxdy ≥ = , (B25)
|x̄ − x||x̄ − y| 16λ 16G2 λ

where we have defined the effective Newtonian potential as hΦ̂i = −G dx h|x̄−x|m̂(x)i

R
.

Appendix C: Newtonian limit of CQ theory

In this section we motivate the Newtonian limit of gravity used in Section V [110]. A fuller treatment can be found
in [111]. We begin with classical general relativity in the ADM formulation [33]. To derive the Hamiltonian, we start
from the 3+1 split of the four metric

ds2 = −(N c dt)2 + gij dxi + N i c dt dxj + N j c dt ,

(C1)

in which case, denoting φm , πm as canonical variables for the matter degrees of freedom, we can write the action for
minimally coupled matter
Z  
∂gij ∂φm
S = d4 x π ij + πm − N H − N i Hi , (C2)
∂t ∂t
where we are ignoring the boundary contributions to the action. Here,

c4 1/2
  
16πG 1 ij kl 1 2
H≡ − g R+ gik gjl π π − π + H(m) , (C3)
16πG c2 g 1/2 2
c3 (m)
Hi ≡ gij ∇k π jk + Hi , (C4)
8πG
are the Hamiltonian and momentum constraints and π ij is defined in terms of the extrinsic curvature tensor of constant
t surfaces, Kij , via

c3 1/2
πij ≡ − g (Kij − Kgij ) . (C5)
16πG
(m)
It is useful to note that the matter densities H(m) , Hi can be related to the matter stress energy T µν via
√
H(m) = gN 2 T 00 ,
(m) √ (C6)
Hi = gN Ti0 .

The Newtonian limit of the gravitational field is given by

c2
   
Φ 2Φ
N = 1 + 2 , N i = 0, gij = 1 − 2 δij , π ij = − πΦ δ ij , (C7)
c c 6
2
with Φ(x) corresponding to the Newtonian potential. The choice of π ij = − c6 πΦ δ ij , is to ensure that πΦ is canonically
conjugate to Φ. As such, we find the effective action can be written
Z  
∂Φ ∂φm
S = d4 x πΦ + πm − HN ewt , (C8)
∂t ∂t
where the Newtonian Hamiltonian is given by
(m)
HN ewt = Hc + H0 + HI (C9)

with
2Gπc2 2 (∇Φ)2
Z  
3
Hc = d x − πΦ + (C10)
3 8πG
 24

the pure gravity Hamiltonian, and

Z
HI = d3 xΦ(x)m(x) (C11)

is the interaction Hamiltonian, from which we see that non-relativistic matter couples to the Newtonian potential
through its mass density m(x). In the case where we have the state of matter being described by a point particle
δ(x − x(t)) of mass m the pure matter Hamiltonian would be

(m) δ ij pi pj
H0 = mc2 + . (C12)
2m
Let us review the classical deterministic constraints. In the Newtonian limit, the Hamiltonian and momentum
constraints themselves become [110]
 
2Gπ 1
H= − πΦ − ∇ Φ − m(x) c2 + O(c0 ) = 0,
2
(C13)
3 4πG
3c
Hi = − ∂i πΦ + O(c0 ) = 0. (C14)
4πG
These are modified in the the classical-quantum case [34], but we need not consider this here. If the static approxima-
tion is made, then the Hamiltonian constraint is solved by πΦ = 0, in which case the Hamiltonian constraint reduces
to Poisson’s equation

∇2 Φ = 4πGm(x) . (C15)

We can also see this directly from Hamilton’s equations which come from varying the Newtonian Hamiltonian. The
equations of motion for the gravitational degrees of freedom reads

4πGc2
Φ̇ = − πΦ , (C16)
3
2
∇ Φ
π̇Φ = − m(x), (C17)
4πG
which, for πΦ = 0 yields the Newtonian solution for a stationary mass density. In a Louivile formulation the dynamics
for the density ρ(Φ, πΦ , xi , pi ) is given by
Z
∂ρ (m) ∂ρ δρ
= {Hc + H0 , ρ} − ∂i Φ(x) + d3 x m(x) , (C18)
∂t ∂pi δπΦ (x)

where the Hamiltonian and momentum constraints tell us that ρ(Φ, πΦ , xi , pi ) should only have support over phase
space degrees of freedom which satisfy the Hamiltonian and momentum constraints in Equation (C13). From Equation
(C18) we can identify the classical drift associated to the back-reaction of the matter on the gravitational field from
the m(x) δπδρ
Φ (x)
term, so that

br
D1,π Φ
(x) = −m(x). (C19)

In the classical-quantum case, we promote m(x) to an operator m̂. In this case Equation (C11) is the interaction
Hamiltonian used in [27] to study CQ gravity. We see from Equation (C18) that in any theory whose first moment
reproduces the Newtonian back-reaction on average
Z  
3 δρ
Tr [{HI , %}] = d x Tr m̂(x) (C20)
δπΦ (x)
br
must have a D1,π Φ
given by

br
hD1π Φ
(x)i = −hm̂(x)i, (C21)

from which the discussion at the beginning of section V follows.

 25

1. Weak field master equations

Although the trade-off we derive does not depend on the particulars of the classical-quantum theory (provided it
reproduces Newtonian gravity in the classical limit), we give two concrete examples for completeness. In [72] we show
that there are two classes of classical-quantum dynamics, one which is continuous in phase space, and one which
has discrete jumps in phase space. We will give examples of each. Although they are the weak field limit of [11], it
is worth stressing that taking the Newtonian limit entails certain coordinate choices and restrictions on the metric.
For example, here, we have restricted ourselves to metrics of the form of Equation (C7). Any gauge fixing of general
relativity which is done before deriving the master equation, is generally not equivalent to taking the master equations
of [11], and then taking the appropriate limit [111].

a. Continuous master equation

For the class of continuous master equation’s, specifying that the first moment on average satisfies Equation (C21)
is enough (up to drift terms which vanish under trace) to fix the general form of master Equation to be

δ2
Z   Z
∂% (m) 3 δ% δ%
≈ {Hc (Φ), %} − i[H0 , %] + d x m̂(x) + m̂(x) + d3 xd3 y (D2 (Φ, πΦ ; x, y)%)
∂t δπΦ δπΦ δπΦ (x)δπΦ (x0 )
Z
1
+ d3 xdy D0 (Φ, x, x0 ) ([m̂(x), [%, m̂(y)]]) , (C22)
2

were Hc is the purely classical gravity Hamiltonian. We have taken the dynamics, i.e, the drift to be local in x, while
we allow for the decoherence and diffusion terms to have some range. In this case the evolution law is still local but
correlations can be created [112]. This master equation is close to the one considered in [27], where the decoherence
and diffusion kernels are chosen to be the ones discussed in D 2. This is the weak field limit of the simplest realisation
in [11]. The case where the diffusion is spatially uncorrelated D2 (x, y) = (x − x0 ) a regulatorpwhich approaches
p a
scalar delta function corresponds to the Newtonian limit of the diffusion term (x − x0 ){N (x) g(x), { g(x0 ), %}}.
Another natural diffusion kernel is D2 (x, y) = −D2 (1 + Φ(x0 ))∆x0 δ(x, y), which can be understood as the Newtonian
limit of the spatially diffeomorphism invariant kernel discussed in Section D 3.
We find in Section F that the δ(x, x0 ) kernel leads to diverging diffusion in the Newtonian potential, so this choice
would need to be supplemented by some mechanism to control the diffusion. For example, a friction term such as
Z
1 p p
F(%) = Df dxdx0 dy{N (x) g(x), { g(x0 )(x − x0 ), H(y)}%}. (C23)
2

In the weak field limit, this would adds a term proportional to

Z
δ
F(%) ≈ dxdx0 (πΦ (x0 )%) (C24)
δπΦ (x)

to the master equation of Equation (C22). Such a term would break Lorentz invariance since it sets a temperature
scale, although this is not necessarily a deal breaker, since it is believed by many that quantum gravity is also likely
to also have an anomaly. However, the friction term is a modification to D1 (x), and if too large, could run afoul of
precision tests of General Relativity, such as the orbital decay of binary pulsars.

b. Discrete master equation

An example of a discrete master equation satisfying Equation (C21) is

c2
Z   
∂% (m) ~τ
R
dy(x−y)(1+
2Φ(y)
) δπΦδ(y) 2Φ(x)
≈ {Hc (Φ), %} − i[H0 , %] + 3
d x e c2 c2 1− ψ(x)%ψ † (x)
∂t ~τ c2

1
− {m(x), %}+ , (C25)
2
 26

with τ a dimensionless constant, and m̂(x) = ψ † ψ a peaked regulator with units of inverse volume. We have here
included ~ and c to make it easier to compare with experiments. To leading order, we could drop terms proportional
√
to Φ(x)/c2 in both the exponential and in N g ≈ 1 − 2Φ/c2 inside the integral over x. This gives

c2
Z
∂% (m)
h ~τ R
dy(x−y) δπ δ (y)
≈ {Hc (Φ), %} − i[H0 , %] + d 3 x e c2 Φ ψ(x)%ψ † (x)
∂t ~τ

1
− {m(x), %}+ . (C26)
2

These dynamical equations are supplemented with modified constraint equations as outlined in [34]. In any case, the
trade-off in Equation (F19) is a statement independent of constraints and constraint preservation, at least in the weak
field limit.

2. Unraveling of continuous master Equations and an exact sourcing by a random mass

In [75] we study unravelings of continuous master Equations, and we can use this to illustrate Equation (41). In
particular, the Newtonian CQ dynamics of Equation (C22) is equivalent to the unravelled set of coupled stochastic
differential equations

4πGc2
dΦ = − πΦ dt,
3
∇2 Φ
Z
dπΦ = dt − hm(x)idt + dyσ(Φ, πΦ ; x, y)dξ(y),
4πG
Z (C27)
1
dρ(t) = −i[Hm , ρ]dt + d3 xD0 (Φ, πΦ ; x, y) ([m(x), [ρ, m(y)]]) dt
2
Z Z
1 1
+ dyσ (Φ, πΦ ; x, y)(m(x) − hm(x)i)ρdξ(y) + dy σ −1 (Φ, πΦ ; x, y)ρ(m(x) − hm(x)i)dξ(y),
−1
2 2

where ξi (x) is a Wiener process in time satisfying

E[dξ(x)] = 0, E[dξ(x)dξ(y)] = dtδ(x, y), (C28)

and ρ is a normalized quantum state. We see that the evolution of the quantum state in Equation (C27) causes the
quantum state to decohere stochastically into a mass density eigenbasis m(x) at a rate determined by D0 . After the
state has decohered, the expectation value of the mass appearing in the dynamics for the conjugate momenta will
look like it is being sourced by decohered mass density m(x) directly.
In the presence of a background potential, and assuming that the theory is minimally coupled, so that σ only
depends on Φb , we can absorb dyσ(Φb , x, y)dξ(y) into a random noise term dξ¯ where E[dξ(x)d ¯ ¯
R
ξ(y)] = dtD2 (Φb , x, y).
Note that since dξ(x) is a Wiener process in time, then the noise term in Equation (41) corresponds to J(x, t) = dξ̄(x)
¯
dt
and is a white noise process in time and E[J(x, t)J(x, t0 )] = D2 (Φb , x, y)δ(t, t0 ). Hence, after the decoherence time,
we see that in the c → ∞ limit we can solve Equation’s (C27) for Φ to find Equation (F1), where the Newtonian
potential is being sourced by a random mass term and so the Equation for the Newtonian potential will be given
exactly by that of Equation (41).
An unravelling equation for hybrid Newtonian dynamics was also given in the measurement and feedback approach
of [30, 32, 113]. In that approach, the dynamics is equivalent to an unravelling of a Lindblad equation, since there
are no independent classical (gravitational) degrees of freedom. The Newtonian potential is directly sourced by a
measurement of spatial separation between two particles, and so will fluctuate directly with measurement results.
Here, the conjugate momentum to the Newtonian potential allows the gravitational field to have independent degrees
of freedom, and because π̇Φ is stochastic, rather than Φ(x), the dynamics can be continuous on the phase space.

Appendix D: Examples of Kernels saturating the decoherence diffusion coupling constants trade-off

In this section, we give examples of kernels satisfying the decoherence diffusion coupling constant trade-off in Equa-
tion (23). For any choice of kernel, we can compute the degree of diffusion it induces in precision mass measurements
(Section F) and decoherence experiments (Section E) which allows us to rule out certain kernels experimentally.
 27

1. Gaussian Lindbladian kernel

As a first example we shall take the Lindbladian coupling to be Gaussian, taking

λαβ r03
D0αβ (x, y) = gN (x, y) (D1)
m20

where gN (x, y) is a normalized Gaussian distribution. The mass m0 is a reference mass, and we shall take it equal to
the mass of the nucleons which were considered in Section V, meanwhile λαβ is a coupling constant which determines
the strength of the Lindbladian.
It should be noted that with this choice of smearing function the pure Lindbladian evolution appearing in (C22)
can be taken to resemble the Lindbladian part of spontaneous collapse models [55, 114–117], except here, there is no
need to think about any ad-hoc field, nor think of the collapse as being a physical process. Rather, one necessarily
gets decoherence of the wave-function for free, via gravitationally induced decoherence[11, 23, 30, 32, 77, 118].
We now find the diffusion kernel D2 (x, y) using the coupling constants trade-off in (23). For simplicity, we
shall assume the trade-off is saturated, and we will take the back-reaction to be local, so that (D1br )µα i (x, y) =
(D1br )µα
i (x)δ(x, y). In this case we find

µν 1 br µα m2 −1
D2,ij (x, y) = (D1 )i (x) 3 0 gN (x, y)(D1br∗ )µα
i (y), (D2)
2 r0 λ
−1
where gN (x, y) is the kernel inverse of a normalized Gaussian distribution.
It is shown in [119], that the inverse distribution takes the form
−1
gN (x, y) = F (x, y)gN (x, y), (D3)

where
d X
N
Y xi − yi
F (x, y) = cn (r0 )H2n ( ), (D4)
i=1 n=0
r0

n 2n
and the limit N → ∞ is taken. In Equation (D4) cn (r0 ) = (−1) 2(rn0 ) n! and d is the spatial dimension, so that
x = (x1 , x2 , . . . , xd ).
In total then, we arrive at the expression for the D2 which saturates the bound

1 br µα m2
D2 (x, y) = (D1 )i (x) 3 0 F (x, y)gN (x, y)(D1br∗ )µα
i (y). (D5)
2 r0 λ

If we further take the back-reaction that of the Newtonian limit in section C (D1br )µα 1 0m πΦ
i (x, y) = 2 δ δi δ(x, y) then we
find the D2 which saturates the bound is

1 m20
D2 (x, y) = F (x, y)gN (x, y). (D6)
8 r03 λ

2. Diosi-Penrose Lindbladian coupling

In this section, we give another example of a Lindbladian coupling which is familiar in the literature,

D0αβ
D0αβ (x, y) = . (D7)
|x − y|

For a single Lindblad operator, this is the coupling introduced in [27] used to reproduce a CQ master equation
of gravity with a decoherence rate given by the Diosi-Penrose formula [120–122]. An alternative interpretation is
presented in [77]. Here we consider the special case where the x, y dependence of D0 (x, y) is the same for all α, β
which need not hold in general. The fact that it gives the same decoherence rate as Diosi-Penrose can be seen by
plugging Equation (D7) into the classical-quantum master equation in Equation (C22).
 28

To invert the kernel in (D7) we use the fact that

 
1 2 1
− ∇ = δ(x, y), (D8)
4π x |x − y|

from which one can immediately read of the generalized inverse (D0−1 )αβ (x, y) to be

(D0−1 )αβ 2
(D0−1 )αβ (x, y) = ∇y (δ(x, y)), (D9)
4π
where (D0−1 )αβ are the matrix elements of the generalized inverse of D0 . As a consequence, we find for this specific
choice of kernel that the diffusion matrix saturating the coupling constants bound in Equation (30) is

µν 1 µα (D−1 )αβ 2 βν
D2,ij (x, y) = D1,i (x) 0 ∇y (δ(x, y))D1,j (y), (D10)
2 4π
where we have also assumed the back-reaction is local. Taking the back-reaction to further be that of Newtonian limit
of Equation (C22) (D1br )µα 1 0m πΦ
i (x) = 2 δ δi we find

1 (D0−1 ) 2
D2 (x, y) = ∇y (δ(x, y)). (D11)
8 4π
This diffusion kernel is argued for on the grounds of having the fluctuations satisfy a Poisson equation, in [27].

3. Diffeomorphism invariant kernel

Attempts to derive the constraint algebra of a generally covariant CQ theory [34, 76], motivates the spatially
diffeomorphism invariant kernel
1 p
D2ijkl (x, x0 ) = − D g(x)N (x)g ij g kl ∆x0 δ(x, x0 ), (D12)
8
where ∆x is the Laplace-Beltrami operator9 . This kernel’s weak field limit is
1
D2ijkl (x, x0 ) = − Dδ ij δ kl (1 + Φ(x)) ∆x0 δ(x, x0 ), (D13)
8
which is close to that of Equation (D11), but with a correction term which turns out to be important.
√
Using D1 (x, x0 ) = − 21 N gδ(x, x0 ), the Lindbladian kernel in dimension d which saturates the trade-off for this
diffusion kernel is
1 p
D0,ijkl (x, x0 ) = 2 g(x)N (x0 )gij (x)gjk (x0 )G(x, x0 ), (D14)
2d D
with G(x, x0 ) the Green’s function for −∆. It is a density in the x0 coordinate and a scalar in x. In the weak field
limit, and to 0th order in Φ(x), this gives the Diosi-Penrose kernel, Equation (D7).
One could also consider the kernel
1 p
D2ijkl (x, x0 ) = − D g(x)g ij g kl ∆x N (x)δ(x, x0 ), (D15)
8
which in the weak field limit is
1
D2ijkl (x, x0 ) = − Dδ ij δ kl ∆Φ(x)δ(x, x0 ). (D16)
8

9 One can also consider the full 3 + 1 kernel, via ∆(4) δ(x, x0 )δ(t, t0 ) along with the associated Green’s function of ∆(4) but this is irrelevant
for the Newtonian limit. It is however useful in removing the apparent asymmetry in the expressions below, since one must recall that
the δ(x, x0 ) is a scalar in the first coordinate and a tensor density in the second, and likewise δ(t, t0 ) has an implicit lapse N (x0 ) in the
second position.
 29

4. A comment on divergences

The examples given above give rise to divergent variance in the classical degrees of freedom, since in both cases
the diffusion coefficient diverges when evaluated at the same point D2 (x, x). Though we do not have a general proof,
this seems to be a general feature of the coupling constant trade-off: for the examples where we can compute the
kernel inverse, at least one of D2 (x, x) and D0 (x, x) diverge. A divergent D2 (x, x) generally leads to a formally
divergent classical energy production, whilst a divergent Lindbladian coupling D0 (x, x) can lead to a divergent energy
production in the matter degrees of freedom. The later is related to the BPS problem [91] of anomolous heating,
although it isn’t necessarily equivalent since some kernels may diverge and be well behaved from the point of view of
energy production. This is not an issue from a conceptual point of view, since the only reason we expect energy to
be conserved is due to Noether’s theorem, and Noether’s theorem doesn’t apply when the evolution isn’t unitary.
In the standard BPS problem, energy production in open quantum field theory can be made small by renormalizing
the Lindbladian coefficient D0 (x, y) appearing in the master equation. Thus the problem is merely one akin to the
hierarchy problem, where we are required to introduce another energy scale. However, in the case of classical-quantum
coupling, the coupling constant trade-off tells us that we cannot re-normalize D0 (x, y) without effecting D2 (x, y).
In particular, tuning the diagonals D0 (x, x) to be arbitrarily small (large) has the effect of tuning D2 (x, x) to be
arbitrarily (large) small: heuristically, one trades energy production in the classical system with energy production
in the quantum system, and the relationship is fixed by the trade-off. On expectation, the total energy could be
preserved, and the back-reaction can even slow down the flow of energy, but it’s unclear if this is enough.
However, it is worth
R noting that while D2 (x, x0 ) may appear to diverge at a single point as x → x0 , when integrated
over test functions, dxdx D2 (x, x0 )f (x)f (x0 ) is usually well behaved. The kernels discussed above have this property.
0

When it comes to physically relevant quantities, such as measuring the gravitational diffusion in table top experiments,
it is the smeared well behaved quantity which is physically relevant. However, in cosmology, we typically take the
2
constraint equation of general relativity to be exactly satisfied at each point, and so one imagines that πΦ (x)10 , and
hence D2 (x, x) is the relevant quantity (see the discussion in Section F). If D2 (x, x) is the relevant quantity, than
it’s divergence is a serious challenge which may require modifying the interaction at short distances, perhaps by
introducing non-locality in D1 (x, x0 ). This non-locality of the interaction is more serious than allowing D0 (x, x0 ) or
D2 (x, x0 ) to not be delta functions, since this just allows for non-local correlations to be created and destroyed[112].
Studying this in detail is beyond the scope of this work, but it may be that classical-quantum field theory can only
be made finite once a physical cut-off has been imposed. One possible method of studying this problem rigorously
would be by studying the regularisation properties of the classical-quantum path integral which we introduce in [123].

Appendix E: Decoherence rates

h i
dzTr D0αβ (z; x, y)Lα (x)%L†β (y) .
R
In this section, we relate decoherence rates to D0 , and also to the average hD0 i =
A more detailed discussion of decoherence rates can be found in [77]. In particular, we shall show that the decoherence
rate of a mass in superposition, is given by Equation (E10) in terms of the Lindblad operators and D0αβ , and can be
related to the quantity hD0 i appearing in the observational trade-off via Equation (F20).
We consider the case of a quantum mass initially in a partially decohered superposition of state |Li and |Ri. We
†
describe the quantum state using creation and R annihilation operators ψ(x), ψ (x) on a Fock space, related to the usual
momentum based Fock operators as ψ(x) = dpei~p·~x ap~ . The mass density operator is defined via m̂(x) = mψ † (x)ψ(x),
where m is the mass of the particle. We assume that the state remains well approximated by a state with fixed particle
number, and the superposition can be taken to be distributions centered around x = xL and x = xR with total mass
M , i.e, for a one particle state we could take |L/Ri = d3 xfL/R (x)ψ † (x)|0i. We will take them to be well separated,
R
so that fL (x)fR (x) ≈ 0, and we take the separation distance to be larger than the scale of the non-locality in D0 (x, y).
Mathematically this means that hL|D0αβ (z; x, y)L†β (y)Lα (x)|Ri ≈ 0 for any local operators Lα (x) and Lβ (y).
With this orthogonality condition, we can then (at least initially) consider the joint quantum classical state restricted
to the 2 dimensional Hilbert space of these two states, so that the total quantum-classical system can be written as
 
uL (Φ, πΦ , t) α(Φ, πΦ , t)
%(Φ, πΦ , t) = , (E1)
α? (Φ, πΦ , t) uR (Φ, πΦ , t)
where uL (Φ, πΦ , t) and uR (Φ, πΦ , t) corresponds to some subnormalised probability distribution over the classical
states of the gravitational field.

10 In GR, its counterpart is Gijkl π ij π kl (x), and it’s perhaps worth noting that this quantity is not positive definite.
 30

We define the total quantum state ρQ by integrating over the classical degrees of freedom
Z
ρQ = DΦDπΦ %(Φ, πΦ , t), (E2)

and we shall relate hD0 i appearing in the trade-off to the decoherence rate of the off diagonals of ρQ . Integrating over
the classical phase space in Equation (9), one finds the follows expression for the evolution of ρQ
Z
∂ρQ
= DφDπΦ − i[H(Φ, πΦ ), %(Φ, πΦ )]
∂t
Z Z  
αβ † 1 αβ †
+ DφDπΦ dxdy D0 (Φ, πΦ ; x, y)Lα (x)%(Φ, πΦ , t)Lβ (y) − D0 (Φ, πΦ ; x, y){Lβ (y)Lα (x), %(Φ, πΦ , t)} .
2
(E3)

∂ρ
In particular, one finds that the off-diagonals hL| ∂tQ |Ri evolve in part according to the commutator, and in part due
to the Lindbladian term
Z Z  
αβ † 1 αβ †
DφDπΦ dxdy hL|D0 (Φ, πΦ ; x, y)Lα (x)%(Φ, πΦ , t)Lβ (y)|Ri − D0 (Φ, πΦ ; x, y)hL|{Lβ (y)Lα (x), %(Φ, πΦ , t)}|Ri .
2
(E4)
Care must be taken however, because both the quantum Hamiltonian, and the Lindbladian coupling constants depend
on the classical degrees of freedom which are effected by the quantum degrees of freedom, and thus the evolution on
the quantum system is non-Markovian in general.
We shall now study the two terms appearing in Equation (E4) separately, starting with the first term. Since we
assume that the state is well approximated by a state with fixed particle number then the contributions to the first
term in (E4) only come from terms where Lα (x) and Lβ (y) have the same number of creation and annihilation
operators. To compute the expression, one commutes through the creation operators to act on the hL| bra, and picks
up a term fL (x). Similarly, one commutes the annihilation operators to the act on the |Ri ket, and picks up a term
fR (y). As a consequence

hL|D0αβ (Φ, πΦ ; x, y)Lα (x)%(Φ, πΦ , t)L†β (y)|Ri ∼ D0αβ (Φ, πΦ ; x, y)fL (x)fR (y) ≈ 0, (E5)

where the last equality follows from the fact that we are taking the masses to be well separated and the range of
D0 (x, y) is assumed to be much less than the separation between the masses.
Hence, the evolution of the off-diagonals comes from the (off-diagonals) of the unitary evolution and the second
term in (E4), the so called no-event term. The off-diagonals of the no-event term is
Z Z
1
− DφDπΦ dxdyD0αβ (Φ, πΦ ; x, y)hL|{L†β (y)Lα (x), %(Φ, πΦ , t)}|Ri, (E6)
2

which is negative definite and acts to exponentially suppress the coherence. To see this, note that expanding out
%(Φ, πΦ , t) in terms of the approximate 2 dimensional Hilbert space

%(Φ, πΦ , t) = uL (Φ, πΦ , t)|LihL| + uR (Φ, πΦ , t)|RihR| + α(Φ, πΦ , t)|LihR| + α∗ (Φ, πΦ , t)|RihL|, (E7)

and using the fact that the range of D0 (x, y) is much less than the separation between the left and right masses, we
can write the off-diagonals of the no-event term as
Z
1  
− DΦDπD0αβ (Φ, πΦ ; x, y) hL|L†β (y)Lα (x)|Li + hR|L†β (y)Lα (x)|Ri hL|%(Φ, πΦ )|Ri. (E8)
2

Equation (E8) already expresses the fact that the off-diagonal terms will decay, and the particle will decohere at a
rate determined by the integrand of (E8).
We can go slightly further when in the presence of a background Newtonian potential which is dominant, such as
the Earth’s Φb . The Earth’s background potential dominates over small fluctuations in Φ due to the particles [77]
and we can approximate (E8) by

1
− D0αβ (x, y)(hL|L†β (y)L†β (y)Lα (x)|Li + hR|L†β (y)L†β (y)Lα (x)|Ri)hL|ρQ |Ri, (E9)
2
 31

where the coupling D0αβ (x, y) depends on the background Newtonian potential, but is otherwise phase-space indepen-
dent. The result is to exponentially decrease the coherence hL|ρQ |Ri with a rate λ determined by
Z
1
λ= dxdyD0αβ (x, y)(hL|L†β (y)Lα (x)|Li + hR|L†β (y)Lα (x)|Ri). (E10)
2
Let us now show that the hD0 i term appearing in the trade-off (F19) is always less than (twice) this decoherence
rate when in the presence of a background potential. Specifically, we show that
Z Z h i
hD0 i = DΦDπΦ dxdyTr D0αβ (Φ, πΦ ; x, y)L†β (y)Lα (x)%(Φ, πΦ ) ≤ 2λ, (E11)

where we assume that we are in the prescence of a background potential. To see this, we first expand out the CQ
state in terms of (E7) and use the fact that D0 has range less than the separation of the masses. We then arrive at
the following expression for the left hand side of (E11)
Z Z
DΦDπΦ dxdyD0αβ (Φ, πΦ ; x, y)(hL|L†β (y)Lα (x)|LiuL (Φ, πΦ , t) + hR|L†β (y)Lα (x)|RiuR (Φ, πΦ , t)), (E12)

In the presence of a background potential, this dominates the contribution to the decoherence and we are left with
Z
dxdyD0αβ (x, y)(hL|L†β (y)Lα (x)|LihL|ρQ |Li + hR|L†β (y)Lα (x)|RihR|ρQ |Ri. (E13)

Due to the positivity of the CQ density matrix hL|ρQ |Li and hR|ρQ |Ri must both be positive. Furthermore, they
must sum to one due to normalization, from which (E10) directly follows.
It is also important to note that though λ is the decoherence rate of a particle in superposition of L/R states, the
bound (E11) holds even for fully decohered masses in any mixture of |LihL|, |RihR| states. This can be seen directly
from (E12) which depends only on uL , uR .

1. Decoherence rate example

In this section we give an explicit example of a decoherence rate calculation. Importantly, we see that in general
the decoherence rate can depend on the probability density. This suggests that the terms appearing in the trade-off
relation, will need to depend on expectation values such as the expectation value of the mass at a point x, rather than
a stronger bound in terms of the mass density. This is perhaps not surprising, since the decoherence rate itself can
be though of as an expectation value, being related to the average time it takes for off-diagonal elements to decay. In
the conclusion, this motivates us to advocate for the volume of the wave-packet to be included in the figure of merit
in future interference experiments.
We take the Newtonian limit master equation defined by Equation (C22). We ignore the unitary part of the evolu-
tion, since it will not directly contribute to the decoherence rate, and can be small for a free particle in superposition.
From Equation (C22) we find the relevant evolution for the quantum state ρQ , obtained by integrating over the
classical degrees of freedom to be
Z
∂ρQ 1
= d3 xd3 yD0 (x, y) ([m̂(x), [ρQ , m̂(y)]]) . (E14)
∂t 2
We now compute the off-diagonal elements for a particle in super-position of orthogonal |Li, |Ri states
Z
∂ρQ
hL| |Ri = − d3 xd3 yD0 (x, y)(mL (x) − mR (x))(mL (y) − mR (y))hL|ρQ |Ri. (E15)
∂t
where mL (x) ≈ hL|m̂(x)|Li and similarly for the right state. We see that the off-diagonals decay exponentially with
a rate determined by

Z
λ= d3 xd3 yD0 (x, y)(mL (x) − mR (x))(mL (y) − mR (y)). (E16)

In the main body, and the previous subsection, we have assumed that the superposition of the particle is much less
than the typical scale of D0 (x, y). In this example, this means that we take the particles sufficiently separated, so
 32

that we can approximate D0 (x, y)mL (x)mR (y) ≈ 0, in which case Equation (E16) is precisely the decoherence rate
calculated in (E10) with L(x) = m̂(x), as is to be expected.
As an example of a decoherence kernel, we can take D0 (x, x0 ) to be the Diosi-Penrose decoherence kernel defined
D0
via D0 (x, y) = |x−y| , so that the off-diagonals decay exponentially with a rate proportional to the Diosi-Penrose
decoherence rate
Z
D0
λ = d3 xd3 y (mL (x) − mR (x))(mL (y) − mR (y)). (E17)
|x − y|
D0
In this example, taking the particles to be sufficiently separated means that we are approximating |xL −xR | ≈ 0 in
comparison with the rest of the terms appearing in (E17). We are then left with
Z
D0
λ = d3 xd3 y (mL (x)mL (y) + mR (x)mR (y)), (E18)
|x − y|

which for spherical distributions of radius R and total mass M is proportional to the average gravitational self-energy
2
of each mass distribution λ = 6D5R0M
.
Both Equation’s (E17) and (E18) depend on the probability density of the mass. In particular, taking the probability
density to be arbitrarily peaked, one finds that the decoherence rate also diverges. This has to be the case: recall
from Section III that if one considers a particle in a superposition of two arbitrarily peaked probability densities,
then there can be an arbitrarily large response in the Newtonian potential around those points. As a consequence,
for such states, the decoherence must occur arbitrarily fast, or there must be an arbitrarily large amount of diffusion
to cover up the back-reaction and maintain coherence. For the continuous master equation, such as that of Equation
(C22) this diffusion must also occur throughout space, although it can depend on the gravitational degrees of freedom.
Since divergent energy production throughout space is clearly unphysical, it must be the case that the decoherence
rate must also depend on the expected mass density, as is the case for this example. This argument allows us to rule
out continuous master equations which have pure Lindbladian terms which predict decoherence rates which which
remain finite as the mass density becomes arbitrarily peaked, since the coupling constant trade-off will demand that
an infinite amount of diffusion is required to cover up the back-reaction and maintain coherence. This is the case for
the class of models with CSL type Lindbladian couplings given by Equation (D1).

Appendix F: Detecting gravitational diffusion

In this section we show how the diffusion induced on the Newtonian potential can be measured experimentally.
As shown in the main body of the text, in the non-relativistic limit, c → ∞, the CQ dynamics can be approximated
by sourcing the Newtonian potential by a random mass term, and that in order to maintain coherence of any mass
is superposition, there must be noise in the Newtonian potential such that we cannot tell which element of the
superposition the particle will be in

∇2 Φ = 4πG[m(x, t) + u(Φ, m̂)J(x, t)], (F1)

with

Em [J(x, t)] = 0, Em [uJ(x, t)uJ(y, t0 )] = 2hD2 (x, y, Φ)iδ(t, t0 ), (F2)

where hD2 (x, y, Φ)i := Tr D2µν (x, y, Φb )Lµ (x)ρL†ν (y) and ρ is the quantum state for the decohered mass density.
 
The diffusion coefficient in Equation (F2) is chosen in order for the dynamics to have the same moments as the CQ
master equation (4). The solution to Equation (F1), having absorbed u into J is given by

[m(x0 , t) − u(Φ, m̂)J(x0 , t)]

Z
Φ(t, x) = −G d3 x0 , (F3)
|x − x0 |

where the statistics of J are described by Equation (F2). A formal treatment of solutions to non-linear stochastic
integrals of the form Equation (F1) can be found in [74].
One can also verify this behaviour in specific cases. In the continuous model of Section C 1 a, the noise is taken
be Gaussian, and this, as well as the evolution of the quantum state, is what determines the diffusion in Equation
(C27). For the class of discrete models, the higher order moments such as Em [J(x, t)J(y, t0 )J(z, t00 )] are suppressed
by an order parameter [11, 24, 34] and that whenever this is true we expect we can approximate the dynamics of the
 33

Newtonian potential by a Gaussian process. Whether this is the case or not, it is the second order moment which
enters into our discussion of the variance here. As such, for minimally coupled theories, the Newtonian potential will
appear to be sourced by a random mass distribution.
In the discrete case, a precise understanding of the effects of the diffusion beyond the Gaussian approximation
involve solving the full classical-quantum dynamics, perhaps using the methods of [24]. In Equation (F1) we are also
taking the time-scale of the diffusion to be faster than the dynamics of the matter distribution. Likewise for the
decoherence – we showed in Appendix C 2 for continuous models the evolution of the quantum state acts to decohere
it into a mass density eigenbasis m(x). One could of course also include the quantum state evolution in a simulation
of full CQ dynamics, but this is beyond the scope of the current work.

1. Table-top experiments

In this section we estimate the variation in force which would be seen in table-top experiments which bounds the
diffusion of classical theories of gravity from above, giving a squeezed bound on D2 due to lower bounds on diffusion
arising from coherence experiments . We do this for dynamics in Equation (F1), but the methodology is general and
could also be used in a full simulation of CQ dynamics.
The variation in force induced on a composite mass is found via
Z
F~tot = − d3 xm(x)∇Φ. (F4)

Using the solution in Equation (F3), the total force can be written
(~x − ~x0 )
Z
F~tot = −G d3 xd3 x0 m(x) [m(x0 , t) − J(x0 , t)]. (F5)
|x − x0 |3
1
RT
In reality, we measure time averaged force by measuring time averaged accelerations over a period T T 0
dtFtot . The
total variation in the forces time averaged magnitude11 σF2 := F~tot · F~tot can be written as
(~x − ~x0 ) · (~y − ~y 0 )
Z
1
σF2 = 2G2 d3 xd3 yd3 x0 d3 y 0 m(x)m(y) hD2 (x0 , y 0 , Φ)i. (F6)
T |x − x0 |3 |y − y 0 |3
We shall use Equation (F6) to provide an upper bound on coupling constants of CQ theories for different choices of
kernels D2 (x0 , y 0 , Φ). Given a choice of functional form of the kernel, all that remains is the strength of the diffusion
coupling, which for the translation invariant kernels we consider here takes the form of a single coupling constant
D2 . We take D2 to be a dimension-full quantity with units kg 2 sm−3 which characterizes the rate of diffusion for the
conjugate momenta of the Newtonian potential.
For a composite mass, we can approximate the mass density by summing over N individual atoms of mass density
mi (x), m(x) = i mi (x). The total force is the given by F~tot = i F~i , where F~i is the force on each individual atom
P P

F~i = − V dxmi (x)∇Φ(x), and the total variation of force is then σF2 = E[ ij Fi Fj ] − E[ i Fi ]2 .
R P P

In general, the squeeze will depend on the functional choice of D2 (x, y, Φ) on the Newtonian potential. As mentioned
in the main body, in the presence of a large background potential Φb , such as that of the Earth’s, we will often be
able to approximate D2 (x, y, Φ) = D2 (x, y, Φb ). This is true for the kernels with functional dependence of the form
D2 ∼ Φn , D2 ∼ ∇Φ, though the approximation does not hold for all kernels, for example D2 ∼ ∇2 Φ which creates
diffusion only where there is mass density. We hereby shall only consider diffusion kernels D2 (x, y, Φb ) where the
background potential is dominant, leaving more general considerations to Section F 2 and future work.
For local translation invariant dynamics for which the background Newtonian potential is dominant, for example
D2 ∼ Φn , we have hD2 (x, y, Φb )i = hD2 (Φb )iδ(x, y) and we arrive at the expression for the total variation in time
averaged force
2G2 X (~x − ~x0 ) · (~y − ~x0 )
Z
2
σF = d3 xd3 yd3 x0 mi (x)mj (y) hD2 (x0 , Φb )i. (F7)
T ij |x − x0 |3 |y − x0 |3

To leading order, the integral in Equation (F7) is dominated by theP self variation
P term where i = j, since nuclear
scales 10−15 m dominate over inter-atomic scales 10−9 m, so that E[ ij Fi Fj ] ∼ i E[Fi2 ]. Approximating the mass

11 The full covariance matrix for various kernels is given in [90]

 34

density of the atoms as coming from their nucleus, and taking them to be spheres of constant density ρ with radius
rN and mass mN , we find that the integral in Equation (F7) is approximately

N G2 ρ2 rN
2 Z
σF2 ∼ d3 x0 hD2 (Φb )i. (F8)
T

For the class of continuous dynamics hD2 (Φb )i = D2 (Φb ), since the diffusion is not associated to any Lindblad
operators. If there is noise everywhere throughout space, then the integral in Equation (F8) diverges, and gives
evidence that continuous CQ theories with noise everywhere should be ruled out.
As such, we expect that continuous CQ theory must contain non-linear terms proportional to the Newtonian
potential appearing in Equation (F1), in which case we can approximate dx0 D2 by Vb D2 where Vb is the volume of
R
the region over which the background Newtonian potential is significant. In total then, we find for continuous local
CQ dynamics

D2 N G2 ρ2 rN
2
Vb
σF2 ∼ . (F9)
T
2
σF
From this, we can calculate D2 in terms of the total variance of the acceleration σa2 = m2tot
to get a lower bound

σa2 N rN4
T
D2 ≤ . (F10)
V b G2

Standard Cavendish type classical torsion experiments measure accelerations of the order 10−7 ms−2 , and we can take
the time over which the acceleration is averaged to be that of minutes T ∼ 102 s, so a very conservative bound is
σa ∼ 10−7 ms−2 , whilst N will be N ∼ 1026 and rN ∼ 10−15 m. We take the background Newtonian potential to be
2
that of the earths and we (conservatively) take Vb to be Vb ∼ rE h ∼ 1015 m3 where rE is the Earths radius and h is
the atmospheric height. We see that this bounds D2 from above by D2 ≤ 10−41 kg 2 sm−3 .
On the other hand, D2 is bounded from below from interferometry experiments which bound the decoherence
rate. From Equation (E16) and the coupling constant trade-off, for the kernel D2 (x, y) = D2 δ(x, y) we see (ignoring
constant factors) that the decoherence rate is found to be

Mλ2
λ∼ , (F11)
Vλ D2
where Mλ is the mass of the particle in the interferometry experiment and Vλ is its volume. This gives rise to the
squeeze

σa2 N rN
4
T Mλ2
≥ D2 ≥ . (F12)
Vb G2 Vλ λ

Using the numbers from [54], with Mλ ∼ 10−24 kg and Vλ ∼ 10−9 10−9 10−7 m3 = 10−25 m3 , λ ∼ 101 s−1 we find that
D2 ≥ 10−24 kg 2 sm−3 . This suggests that the D2 (x, y) = D2 δ(x, y) kernel for classical gravity is already ruled out by
experiment.
For the local discrete models, such as that of Equation (C25), the theory is less constrained due to the dependence
l3
of the diffusion on the mass density. In this case hD2 (Φb )i = mPP D2 (Φb )m(x), where the factors of Planck length and
Planck mass are to ensure that D2 (Φb ) has the required units. We arrive at the upper bound for D2

σa2 N rN
4
T mP
≥ D2 . (F13)
mN G2 lP3

Meanwhile, from Equation (E10), and coupling constant trade-off (29) the decoherence rate for local discreet jumping
models goes as λ ∼ Ml3λD
mP
2
, which gives rise to the lower bound for D2 . From this we arrive at the squeeze
P

σa2 N rN
4
T l3 D2 Mλ
2
≥ P ≥ , (F14)
mN G mP λ

and plugging in the numbers we find the bound given by Equation (46) which gives rise to the squeeze for local
l3
discrete models 10−1 kgs ≥ mPP D2 ≥ 10−25 kgs.
 35

We can also consider other diffusion kernels, for example that of Equation (D13). In this case, for continuous
dynamics we have that hD2 (x, y)i = −lP2 D2 (Φb )∇2 δ(x, y). The Lindbladian kernel saturating the coupling constants
trade-off at zeroeth order in Φ(x), is the Diosi-Penrose kernel D0 (x, y, Φb ) = D|x−y|
0 (Φb )
, as we saw in Section (D 2).
Approximating the masses as spheres of constant density we find from a substitution of the kernel into Equation (F6)
that the variation in time averaged force is given by

lP2 G2 m2N N D2
σF2 ∼ 3 . (F15)
T rN

We therefore find a lower bound for D2 in terms of the variation in acceleration

T lP2 σa2 N rN
3
D2 ≤ 2
, (F16)
G
which for classical torsion experiments σa ∼ 10−7 ms−2 , T ∼ 102 s, N ∼ 1026 and rN ∼ 10−15 m gives D2 lp2 ≤
10−9 kgsm−1 . On the other hand, for this kernel the decoherence rate can be calculated via Equation (E18)

Mλ2
λ∼ 2 , (F17)
lP D2 Rλ

which gives the squeeze on D2

T σa2 N rN
3
2 Mλ2
≥ l P D 2 ≥ . (F18)
G2 Rλ λ

For the numbers used in the main body of the text, Mλ ∼ 10−24 kg, Rλ ∼ 10−9 m, λ ∼ 101 s, this yields D2 lP2 ≥
10−40 kgsm−1 and so this model is not ruled out by experiment.
In general then, we expect that by simulating full CQ dynamics satisfying the decoherence diffusion trade-off we
will be able to squeeze D2 from above and below. We bound D2 from above by studying the effects of diffusion
on gravitational experiments, and we bound D2 from below using the coupling constant trade-off and coherence
experiments lower bounding the decoherence rate. As we have seen in this section, it appears that classes of continuous
CQ hybrid theories of gravity, including models without spatial correlations, are already experimentally ruled out,
whilst others, such as the kernels in Subsection D 3 require stronger bounds from both gravitational and coherence
experiments. We have been very conservative in our estimates, and so we expect a more thourough analysis will
tighten the bounds by orders of magnitute.

2. Kinetic energy produced by gravitational diffusion

In this section, we obtain a lower bound for the amount of energy production required in a coherence experiment in
order to maintain coherence for masses in a superposition. By virtue of the coupling constant trade-off (29), theories
of CQ gravity will generically involve energy production, but the amount of production will be theory dependent. The
bound we derive here follows from the observational trade-off of Equation (33) and is a theory independent energy
production which must be seen by any CQ theory for which the observational trade-off holds. This includes all
αβ
continuous CQ dynamics aswell as the discrete models which back-react solely via D1,i , for example those given in
[11, 24, 34]. Plugging (38) into the trade-off in Equation (33) we find
Z
8hD2,πΦ πΦ (x, x)i d3 x0 d3 y 0 hD0 (x0 , y 0 )i ≥ |hm̂(x)i|2 . (F19)

We shall now relate the remaining quantities in (F19) to diffusion and decoherence.
Experimentally measured decoherence rates can be related to D0 . We explore the calculation of decoherence rates
in gravity in detail in [77]. In appendix E, we show that for a mass in state %LR (Φ, πΦ ) whose quantum state
is a superposition of two states |Li and |Ri of approximately orthogonal mass densities mL (x), mR (x), and whose
separation we take to be larger than the non-locality scale of D0 (x, y), the expectation value of D0 entering in the
trade-off of Equation (F19) is bounded above by (twice) the decoherence rate λ of the particle
Z Z h i
DΦDπΦ dx0 dy 0 Tr D0αβ (x0 , y 0 )L†β (y 0 )Lα (x0 )%LR ≤ 2λ. (F20)
 36

Here we emphasize that λ is state dependent, since it is the decoherence rate calculated in the state %LR describing
a super-position of two approximately orthogonal mass densities. For the same reason, hm̂i and the other moments
also depend on the state. Substituting for λ into (F19) we find a lower bound for the amount of diffusion which must
be produced in terms of the average mass density and the decoherence rate
|hm̂(x)i|2
hD2,πΦ πΦ (Φ, πΦ ; x, x)i ≥ . (F21)
16λ
Let us turn to the physical meaning of D2,πΦ πΦ appearing in Equation (F19). From Equation (13), we can relate
D2,πΦ πΦ to the evolution of the variance σπ2 Φ (x)

dσπ2 Φ (x)
∼ 2hD2,πΦ πΦ (Φ, πΦ ; x, x)i (F22)
dt
where we consider states whose gravitational potential is initially peaked around a stationary value i.e. hπΦ i ≈ 0.
The Newtonian limit requires πΦ = 0 so this is strictly weaker than considering states which start off Newtonian.
Equation (F21) then gives a lower bound for the rate at which πΦ dispersion is produced in terms of the observed
decoherence rate λ
dσπ2 Φ (x) |hm(x)i|2
≥ , (F23)
dt 8λ
which gives a lower bound on the expectation rate of πΦ diffusion. While for the local diffusion rate, it’s clear that the
mass density of the particle might be more important than its total mass, it’s surprising that the expectation value
of the mass density should be important. This has arisen because we took the expectation value, in order to relate
the coupling constants to observational quantities like λ. In most cases, one imagines that using a filter to create
narrower wave-packets in an interference experiment is unlikely to change the decoherence rate.
Using the spatially averaged trade-off derived in Section B 4 we also arrive at a second useful bound
M2
Z
hD2 (x, x0 )idxdx0 ≥ , (F24)
V 16λ
where the integration is carried out over the volume of where the object might be, and M is the total mass of the
object. Both these two equations have a clear physical interpretation coming from hypothesis testing. If πΦ (x)
is monitored over a region, it’s value can be used to determine where a particle is, since its mean value satisfies
2
hπ̇Φ i = h∇ Φi
4πG − hm(x)i (see Appendix C) and Φ(x) is known. If this monitoring is conducted over a time 1/λ in which
the particle is in a superposition of being in different regions, then the variance in πΦ (x) due to the diffusion over this
time must be at least as large as its mean value squared, otherwise one could determine where the particle is and the
superposition would be decohered.
Equation (F23) can be thought of as a stochastic contribution to the gravitational kinetic energy. To see this,
consider the Newtonian limit of the pure gravity Hamiltonian, which can be written as
2πGc2 2 (∇Φ)2
Z  
Hc (Φ) = − πΦ + (F25)
x 3 8πG
2
with πΦ (x) the kinetic term12 . This form of the Hamiltonian, which involves some gauge fixing, is rederived in
Appendix C from the ADM Hamiltonian [33].
Combining Equations (F23) and (F25) allows us to get a lower bound for this stochastic kinetic energy production

c2 Gπ|hm(x)i|2
Z
d∆Ē
≥ d3 x . (F26)
dt 12λ
This diffusion in gravitational kinetic energy is akin to the stochastic production of gravitational waves, but these
waves need not be transverse and are due to fluctuations in mass. We shall refer to them as stochastic waves.
As we have seen, the decoherence rate λ is bounded by various experiments [78]. Typically, the goal of such
experiments is to witness interference patterns of molecules which are as massive as possible. Taking a conservative

12 In General Relativity it is the pure gravity kinetic energy density contribution to the Hamiltonian constraint, although in the Newtonian
limit it is set to zero.
 37

bound on λ, for example that arising from the interferometry experiment of [54] which saw coherence in large organic
fullerene molecules with total mass 10−24 kg over a timescale of 0.1s, gives an upper bound on the decoherence rate
λ < 101 s−1 . We now use this to estimate a lower bound on the production of stochastic gravitational waves. The
fullerene molecules had typical size r ∼ 10−9 m. After passing through the slits the molecule becomes delocalized
in the transverse direction on the order of 10−7 m before being detected. Since the interference effects are due to
the superposition in the transverse x direction, which is the direction of alignment of the gratings, it seems like a
reasonable assumption to take the size of the wavepacket in the remaining y, z direction to be the size of the fullerene,
since we could imagine measuring the y, z directions without effecting the coherence. We therefore can estimate the
−24
−19
expectation of the mass density to be hm(x)i ∼ 10−910 1 d∆Ē
10−9 10−7 ∼ 10 and one finds dt ∼ 10 Js−1 . In comparison,
the energy of the gravitational waves detected at LIGO, for example GW150914[124], is of the order 10−2 J/m2 s.
Cosmological observations appear to rule out a stochastic production of waves over all space of this magnitude – as is
required by the continuous realisations of classical-quantum dynamics discussed in Appendix C 1 a, where D2 (x, x0 ) =
D2 δ(x, x0 ) doesn’t depend on Φ. This assumption is required, if we want to extrapolate the diffusion required in
−19
a terrestrial interference experiment to that occurring throughout space. Since we require d∆ Ē
dt ∼ 10 Js−1 over
the wave-packet size of nucleons, this implies that the energy density of waves must be produced at a rate of at
least ∼ 105 Js−1 m−3 . This gives an energy density in the ball park of 1022 J/m3 accumulated over the age of the
universe.This would appear to rule out the D2 (x, x0 ) = D2 δ(x, x0 ), although we should be careful about extrapolating
the theory to a regime we understand little about. We should also be mindful that our definition of gravitational
kinetic energy may require some regularisation via point-splitting in this instance.