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Abstract

Understanding the interplay between quantum mechanical systems and gravity is a crucial step in uniting these two ideas. In recent works [1-7], the loss of coherence of quantum spatial superpositions is explored in the context of the local and global properties of spacetime. Moreover, Danielson et al [2, 3] showed that this decoherence is directly related to the memory effect, which is a prominent feature of gravitational radiation. We therefore seek to explore how a burst of gravitational radiation from a far-away source can effect the coherence of a quantum superposition. In this paper, we identify the individual contributions to the decoherence from the oscillatory and memory components of the incident gravitational wave, corresponding to hard and soft graviton emissions, respectively. In general, the memory contributions dominate, while the oscillatory component of the decoherence is strongly dependent on the phase of the burst when it is switched off. This work demonstrates how decoherence in quantum systems can arise from interactions with a classical gravitational field. We also briefly comment on the electromagnetic analogue of this effect and discuss its correspondence to the gravitational case.