Invitation to a talk by Dennis Rätzel on Tuesday, January 30th 2018, 14:30h

The sensitivity of quantum measurements continuouslyincreases, and accordingly, grows the interest to applyquantum optical and quantum optomechanical techniquesto phenomena related to gravity. Of particular interest are phenomenathat can only be explained with a general relativistic treatment orwith one of its many alternatives. Phenomena of this type include timedilation, dynamical effects like gravitomagnetism, frame dragging,retardation of gravity and gravitational waves. Such phenomena areespecially interesting as the overlap of quantum theory and generalrelativity still seems to withhold the answers to some of the deepestquestions of physics of the 21st century.However, the description of quantum experiments in general relativityis full of subtleties and potential misunderstandings, and in general,can be regarded as complicated. In this talk, it is shown thatthe linearized version of general relativity is not much more complicatedthan electrodynamics. A variety of tools is given to treat problems onthe overlap of Quantum Optics and General Relativity. First, thelinearization of the metric will be introduced leading to a gauge theoryfor the metric perturbation. As an example, gravitational waves arediscussed, and as a particular useful tool, the proper detector frame isintroduced. Furthermore, the Newtonian limit of GR and Quantum FieldTheory on curved spacetimes is presented. The framework ofgravitoelectrodynamics is introduced which is particularly useful toobtain intuition for effects beyond the Newtonian limit.