Did the Gran Sasso Experiment Rule Out the Diósi-Penrose Theory? Musing on the 2021 Result and the Present Experimental Status
Abstract
In 2021, a low-background experiment at the Gran Sasso National Laboratory searched for spontaneous radiation predicted by the standard Markovian Diósi-Penrose (DP) dynamics and obtained the new bound R0 > 5.4 × 10−11 m at 95% probability for the short-length cutoff parameter. For germanium at the experimental temperature, the parameter-free prescription identifying R0 with the spatial quantum spread of a nucleus gives R0 ≃ 5 × 10−12 m. That particular combination, Diósi's stochastic dynamics and the Penrose-motivated mass-density resolution, was therefore excluded. Subsequent searches strengthened the cutoff bound. The Majorana Demonstrator improved it in 2022, and XENONnT has now obtained the world-leading limits R0 > 4.9 × 10−10 m at 90% confidence level and R0 > 4.5 × 10−10 m at 95% confidence level. These advances reinforce the 2021 exclusion but do not alter its logical scope: they \emph{parametrically constrain} the Markovian, effectively white-noise DP dynamics, not Penrose's (and Diósi's) lifetime criterion independently of a dynamics, and not all colored-noise, dissipative, or otherwise modified gravity-related spontaneous collapse theories. We reconstruct what Gran Sasso did and did not rule out and place that conclusion in the present experimental context.
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BibTeX
@misc{curceanu2026gran,
title = {{Did the Gran Sasso Experiment Rule Out the Diósi-Penrose Theory? Musing on the 2021 Result and the Present Experimental Status}},
author = {Catalina Curceanu and Nicola Bortolotti and Lajos Diósi and Simone Manti and Kristian Piscicchia},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2610.35608},
eprint = {2610.35608},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.35608},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Did the Gran Sasso Experiment Rule Out the Diósi-Penrose Theory? Musing on the 2021 Result and the Present Experimental Status
AU - Catalina Curceanu
AU - Nicola Bortolotti
AU - Lajos Diósi
AU - Simone Manti
AU - Kristian Piscicchia
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/26
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2610.35608
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.35608
AB - In 2021, a low-background experiment at the Gran Sasso National Laboratory searched for spontaneous radiation predicted by the standard Markovian Diósi-Penrose (DP) dynamics and obtained the new bound R_0 > 5.4 × 10^−11 m at 95% probability for the short-length cutoff parameter. For germanium at the experimental temperature, the parameter-free prescription identifying R_0 with the spatial quantum spread of a nucleus gives R_0 ≃ 5 × 10^−12 m. That particular combination, Diósi's stochastic dynamics and the Penrose-motivated mass-density resolution, was therefore excluded. Subsequent searches strengthened the cutoff bound. The Majorana Demonstrator improved it in 2022, and XENONnT has now obtained the world-leading limits R_0 > 4.9 × 10^−10 m at 90% confidence level and R_0 > 4.5 × 10^−10 m at 95% confidence level. These advances reinforce the 2021 exclusion but do not alter its logical scope: they \emph{parametrically constrain} the Markovian, effectively white-noise DP dynamics, not Penrose's (and Diósi's) lifetime criterion independently of a dynamics, and not all colored-noise, dissipative, or otherwise modified gravity-related spontaneous collapse theories. We reconstruct what Gran Sasso did and did not rule out and place that conclusion in the present experimental context.
ER -