Speaker's Brief Introduction：
● I have been the earliest Indian Researcher who did doctoral work in India in the beginning of the 1980s on the then globally emerging new line of research related to experimentally oriented studies on Foundations of Quantum Mechanics. Subsequently, after my post-doctoral studies in the UK with late Prof. David Bohm and Prof. Roger Penrose, I have been working in India, contributing to fostering this line of research in India, evolving into the Frontier area of Quantum Information based on Quantum Foundations.
● Apart from mentoring a considerable number of young Indian researchers and authoring more than 150 Research Publications with my various collaborators in India and abroad, the most significant of these works being discussed on my Website (https://dipankarhome.com/), my two notable books are:
● “Conceptual Foundations of Quantum Physics” with Foreword by Anthony Leggett (Plenum, 1997).
● “Einstein’s Struggles with Quantum Theory: A Reappraisal”with Andrew Whitaker. Foreword by Roger Penrose (Springer, 2007).
● I served in Bose Institute, Kolkata till superannuating as Senior Professor in 2018, and subsequently have been Senior Scientist, National Academy of Sciences India.
Abstract: After 100 years of Quantum Mechanics (QM), among the unresolved foundational questions, the outstanding ones are the following:
A. Quantum-Classical Boundary: To what extent QM is valid in the Macroscopic domain of the Classical World?
B. The Quantum Measurement Problem: Can the proposed solutions to the much debated Quantum Measurement Problem be empirically discriminated or constrained?
C. Quantumness of Gravity: Can one test this predicted feature by Tabletop Experiment?
For addressing all the above-mentioned issues in an experimentally oriented way,a necessary requirement is to test the validity of Quantum Mechanical Superposition of Macroscopically Distinct States of amassiveMacro-object.However, the state-of-the-art demonstrations of this feature havesofar reached only up to macromolecules of mass ~105amu. Hence, fresh ideas, feasible to be implemented experimentally inthenearfuture, are called for inorder toscale up the tests of Quantum Superposition of States to ever more massive objects.
It is precisely for addressing this challenge, in our latest work [Physical Review Letters 132, 030202 (2024)], we have devised a novel procedure for demonstrating the validity of Quantum Superposition Principle for an oscillating object like a pendulum having any large mass (our formulated example has been called Schrödinger’s Pendulum Experimentin an article on our work inScientific American,27 February,2024). Basic ideas underlying this work and its experimental testability will be discussed in my present talk after reviewing the relevant backdrop.