Editing Schrödinger's cat (section)

=== Objective collapse theories ===

According to [[objective-collapse theory|objective collapse theories]], superpositions are destroyed spontaneously (irrespective of external observation) when some objective physical threshold (of time, mass, temperature, [[irreversibility]], etc.) is reached. Thus, the cat would be expected to have settled into a definite state long before the box is opened. This could loosely be phrased as "the cat observes itself" or "the environment observes the cat".

Objective collapse theories require a modification of standard quantum mechanics to allow superpositions to be destroyed by the process of time evolution.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Okon|first1=Elias|last2=Sudarsky|first2=Daniel|date=2014-02-01|title=Benefits of Objective Collapse Models for Cosmology and Quantum Gravity|journal=Foundations of Physics|language=en|volume=44|issue=2|pages=114–143|doi=10.1007/s10701-014-9772-6|issn=1572-9516|arxiv=1309.1730|bibcode=2014FoPh...44..114O|s2cid=67831520}}</ref> These theories could ideally be tested by creating mesoscopic superposition states in the experiment. For instance, energy cat states has been proposed as a precise detector of the quantum gravity related energy decoherence models.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Khazali|first1=Mohammadsadegh|last2=Lau|first2=Hon Wai|last3=Humeniuk|first3=Adam|last4=Simon|first4=Christoph|date=2016-08-11|title=Large energy superpositions via Rydberg dressing|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/physreva.94.023408|journal=Physical Review A|volume=94|issue=2|page=023408|doi=10.1103/physreva.94.023408|issn=2469-9926|arxiv=1509.01303|bibcode=2016PhRvA..94b3408K|s2cid=118364289}}</ref>