Locally mediated entanglement in linearized quantum gravity

The current interest in laboratory detection of entanglement mediated by gravity was sparked by an information-theoretic argument: entanglement mediated by a local field certifies that the field is not classical. Previous derivations of the effect modeled gravity as instantaneous; here we derive it from linearized quantum general relativity while keeping Lorentz invariance explicit, using the path-integral formalism. In this framework, entanglement is clearly mediated by a quantum feature of the field. We also point out the possibility of observing “retarded” entanglement, which cannot be explained by an instantaneous interaction. This is a difficult experiment for gravity, but is plausible for the analogous electromagnetic case.