No, you cannot test quantum gravity with X-ray superradiance

I am always looking for new ways to repeat myself, so I cannot possibly leave out this opportunity to point out yet another possibility to not test quantum gravity. Chris Lee from Arstechnica informed the world last week that “Deflecting X-rays due to gravity may provide view on quantum gravity”, which is a summary of the paper

Gravitational and Relativistic Deflection of X-Ray Superradiance
By Wen-Te Liao and Sven Ahrens

The idea is to shine light on a crystal at frequencies high enough so that it excites nuclear resonances. This excitation is delocalized, and the energy is basically absorbed and reemitted systematically, which leads to a propagation of the light-induced excitation through the crystal. How this propagation proceeds depends on the oscillations of the nuclei, which again depends on the local proper time. If you place the crystal in a gravitational field, the proper time will depend on the strength of the field. As a consequence, the propagation of the excitation through the crystal depends on the gradient of the gravitational field. The authors argue that in principle this influence of gravity on the passage of time in the crystal should be measurable.

They then look at a related but slightly different effect in which the crystal rotates and the time-dilatation resulting from the (non-inertial!) motion gives rise to a similar effect, though much larger in magnitude.

The authors do not claim that this experiment would be more sensitive than already existing ones. I assume that if it was so, they’d have pointed this out. Instead, they write the main advantage is that this new method allows to test both special and general relativistic effects in tabletop experiments.

It’s a neat paper. What does it have to do with quantum gravity? Well, nothing. Indeed the whole paper doesn’t say anything about quantum gravity. Quantum gravity, I remind you, is the quantization of the gravitational interaction, which plays no role for this whatsoever. Chris Lee in his Arstechnica piece explains

“Experiments like these may even be sensitive enough to see the influence of quantum mechanics on space and time.”

Which is just plainly wrong. The influence of quantum mechanics on space-time is far too weak to be measurable in this experiment, or in any other known laboratory experiment. If you figure out how to do this on a tabletop, book your trip to Stockholm right away. Though I recommend you show me the paper before you waste your money.

Here is what Chris Lee had to say about the question what he thinks it’s got to do with quantum gravity:

@skdh @arstechnica no not entirely. Every test of general relativity is trying to find a discrepancy, which is relevant to quantum gravity
— Chris Lee (@exmamaku) March 22, 2015

Deviations from general relativity aren’t the same as quantum gravity. And besides this, for all I can tell the authors haven’t claimed that they can test a new parameter regime that hasn’t been tested before. The reference to quantum gravity is an obvious attempt to sex up the piece and has no scientific credibility whatsoever.

Summary: Just because it’s something with quantum and something with gravity doesn’t mean it’s quantum gravity.