Title: 

Demystifying graviton detection

Abstract:

The merger of quantum theory with gravity is one of the main open problems in physics with little experimental input to date. But now quantum technologies have opened new opportunities to test the interplay of the two theories and even to test the quantization of gravity itself. Here I will present a recent result from our group which shows that gravitons -- the expected quanta of gravity -- can be detected. The conventional wisdom was that detecting a single graviton would require something like a Jupiter-sized detector orbiting a neutron star. I will explain how a different, far more efficient detection process circumvents these earlier estimates, allowing a laboratory-scale experiment to accomplish the same goal. This concept opens a new experimental field built on quantum technology, offering an opportunity to directly probe the predicted quanta of gravity and their statistics in gravitational waves.