Quantum Emulation of Gravitational Waves

Abstract

Gravitational waves, as predicted by Einstein's general relativity theory, appear as ripples in the fabric of spacetime traveling at the speed of light. We prove that the propagation of small amplitude gravitational waves in a curved spacetime is equivalent to the propagation of a subspace of electromagnetic states. We use this result to propose the use of entangled photons to emulate the evolution of gravitational waves in curved spacetimes by means of experimental electromagnetic setups featuring metamaterials.This work was funded by the Center of Excellence for Engineered Quantum Systems and by the Basque Government IT472- 10 Grant, Spanish MINECO FIS2012-36673-C03-02, Ramon y Cajal Grant RYC-2012-11391, UPV/EHU UFI 11/55, UPV/EHU EHUA14/04, CCQED, PROMISCE and SCALEQIT European projects. G.M.-T is also funded by the Future Fellowship program (FF). I.F.C wishes to acknowledge Ms Magda Felo for drawing Fig. 1