The observation of single-photon optomechanical effects is a desired task in cavity optomechanics. However, the realization of ultrastrong optomechanical interaction remains a big challenge. Here, we present an all-optical scheme to simulate ultrastrong optomechanical coupling based on a Fredkin-type interaction, which consists of two exchange-coupled modes with the coupling strength depending on the photon number in another controller mode. This coupling enhancement is assisted by the displacement amplification according to the physical idea of the Bogoliubov approximation, which is realized by utilizing a strong driving to pump one of the two exchanging modes. Our numerical simulations demonstrate that the enhanced optomechanical coupling can enter the single-photon strong-coupling and even ultrastrong-coupling regimes. We also show the creation of macroscopic quantum superposed states and the implementation of a weak-to-strong transition for quantum measurement in this system. This work will pave the way to quantum simulation of single-photon optomechanical effects with current experimental platforms.
We propose a reliable scheme to simulate tunable and ultrastrong mixed (first-order and quadratic optomechanical couplings coexisting) optomechanical interactions in a coupled two-mode bosonic system, in which the two modes are coupled by a cross-Kerr interaction and one of the two modes is driven through both the single- and two-excitation processes. We show that the mixed-optomechanical interactions can enter the single-photon strong-coupling and even ultrastrong-coupling regimes. The strengths of both the first-order and quadratic optomechanical couplings can be controlled on demand, and he…
We propose a reliable scheme to realize a generalized ultrastrong optomechanical coupling in a two-mode cross-Kerr-type coupled system, where one of the bosonic modes is strongly driven. The effective optomechanical interaction takes the form of a product of the photon number operator of one mode and the quadrature operator of the other mode. The coupling strength and quadrature phase are both tunable via the driving field. The coupling strength can be strongly enhanced to reach the ultrastrong-coupling regime, where the few-photon optomechanical effects such as photon blockade and macroscopic…
In a canonical optomechanical system, mechanical vibrations are dynamically encoded on an optical probe field which reciprocally exerts a backaction force. Due to the weak single photon coupling strength achieved with macroscopic oscillators, most of existing experiments were conducted with large photon numbers to achieve sizeable effects, thereby causing a dilution of the original optomechanical non-linearity. Here, we investigate the optomechanical interaction of an ultrasensitive suspended nanowire inserted in a fiber-based microcavity mode. This implementation allows to enter far into the …
Plasmonic dimer cavities can induce extreme electric-field hot spots that allow one to access ultrastrong coupling regimes using Raman-type spectroscopy on single vibrating molecules. Using a generalized master equation, we study resonant Raman scattering in the strong coupling regime of cavity-QED, when also in the vibrational ultrastrong coupling regime, leading to "phonon-dressed polaritons". The master equation rigorously includes spectral baths for the cavity and vibrational degrees of freedom, as well as a pure dephasing bath for the resonant two-level system, which play a significant ro…
Ultrastrong light-matter interaction in an optomechanical system can result in nonlinear optical effects such as photon blockade. The system-bath couplings in such systems play an essential role in observing these effects. Here we study the quantum coherence of an optomechanical system with a dressed-state master equation approach. Our master equation includes photon-number-dependent terms that induce dephasing in this system. Cavity dephasing, second-order photon correlation, and two-cavity entanglement are studied with the dressed-state master equation.
We develop a rigorous theoretical framework for interaction-induced phenomena in the waveguide quantum electrodynamics (QED) driven by mechanical oscillations of the qubits. Specifically, we predict that the simplest set-up of two qubits, harmonically trapped over an optical waveguide, enables the ultrastrong coupling regime of the quantum optomechanical interaction. Moreover, the combination of the inherent open nature of the system and the strong optomechanical coupling leads to emerging parity-time (\PT) symmetry, quite unexpected for a purely quantum system without artificially engineered …
We present a new optomechanical device where the motion of a micromechanical membrane couples to a microwave resonance of a three-dimensional superconducting cavity. With this architecture, we realize ultrastrong parametric coupling, where the coupling rate not only exceeds the dissipation rates in the system but also rivals the mechanical frequency itself. In this regime, the optomechanical interaction induces a frequency splitting between the hybridized normal modes that reaches 88% of the bare mechanical frequency, limited by the fundamental parametric instability. The coupling also exceeds…
The interaction among the components of a hybrid quantum system is often neglected when considering the coupling of these components to an environment. However, if the interaction strength is large, this approximation leads to unphysical predictions, as has been shown for cavity-QED and optomechanical systems in the ultrastrong-coupling regime. To deal with these cases, master equations with dissipators retaining the interaction between these components have been derived for the quantum Rabi model and for the standard optomechanical Hamiltonian. In this article, we go beyond these previous der…
We propose a scheme for controlling a radio-frequency mechanical resonator at the quantum level using a superconducting qubit. The mechanical part of the circuit consists of a suspended micrometer-long beam that is embedded in the loop of a superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) and is connected in parallel to a transmon qubit. Using realistic parameters from recent experiments with similar devices, we show that this configuration can enable a tuneable optomechanical interaction in the single-photon ultrastrong-coupling regime, where the radiation-pressure coupling strength is lar…
Quantum superposition in mechanical systems is not only key evidence for macroscopic quantum coherence, but can also be utilized in modern quantum technology. Here we propose an efficient approach for creating macroscopically distinct mechanical superposition states in a two-mode optomechanical system. Photon hopping between the two cavity modes is modulated sinusoidally. The modulated photon tunneling enables an ultrastrong radiation-pressure force acting on the mechanical resonator, and hence significantly increases the mechanical displacement induced by a single photon. We study systematica…
Ultrastrong coupling between light and matter has, in the past decade, transitioned from theoretical idea to experimental reality. It is a new regime of quantum light-matter interaction, going beyond weak and strong coupling to make the coupling strength comparable to the transition frequencies in the system. The achievement of weak and strong coupling has led to increased control of quantum systems and applications like lasers, quantum sensing, and quantum information processing. Here we review the theory of quantum systems with ultrastrong coupling, which includes entangled ground states wit…
We propose the simulation of quantum-optical systems in the ultrastrong-coupling regime using a variational quantum algorithm. More precisely, we introduce a short-depth variational form to prepare the groundstate of the multimode Dicke model on a quantum processor and present proof-of-principle results obtained via cloud access to an IBM device. We moreover provide an algorithm for characterizing the groundstate by Wigner state tomography. Our work is a first step towards digital quantum simulation of quantum-optical systems with potential applications to the spin-boson, Kondo and Jahn-Teller…
We investigate optical response of a linear waveguide quantum electrodynamics (QED) system, namely, an optical cavity coupled to a waveguide. Our analysis is based on exact diagonalization of the overall Hamiltonian and is therefore rigorous even in the ultrastrong coupling regime of waveguide QED. Owing to the counter-rotating terms in the cavity-waveguide coupling, the motion of cavity amplitude in the phase space is elliptical in general. Such elliptical motion becomes remarkable in the ultrastrong coupling regime due to the large Lamb shift comparable to the bare cavity frequency. We also …
We propose a scheme for enhancing the optomechanical coupling between microwave and mechanical resonators by up to seven orders of magnitude to the ultrastrong coupling limit in a circuit optomechanical setting. The tripartite system considered here consists of a Josephson junction Cooper-pair box that mediates the coupling between the microwave cavity and the mechanical resonator. The optomechanical coupling can be modified by tuning the gate charge and the magnetic flux bias of the Cooper-pair box which in turn affect the Josephson capacitance of the Cooper-pair box. We additionally show tha…
The hybrid microwave optomechanical-magnetic system has recently emerged as a promising candidate for coherent information processing because of the ultrastrong microwave photon-magnon coupling and the longlife of the magnon and phonon. As a quantum information processing device, the realization of a single excitation holds special meaning for the hybrid system. In this paper, we introduce a single two-level atom into the optomechanical-magnetic system and show that an unconventional blockade due to destructive interference cannot offer a blockade of both the photon and magnon. Meanwhile, unde…
We present a direct mapping between the quantum optomechanical problem of the atoms harmonically trapped in the vicinity of a chiral waveguide and a generalized quantum Rabi model and discuss the analogy between the self-organization of atomic chains in photonic structures and Dicke-like quantum phase transitions in the ultrastrong coupling regime. We extend the class of the superradiant phase transitions for the systems possessing $\mathbb{Z}_3$ rather than parity $\mathbb{Z}_2$ symmetry and demonstrate the emergence of the multicomponent Schrodinger cat ground states in these systems.
We show that a spontaneous release of virtual photon pairs can occur in a quantum optical system in the ultrastrong coupling regime. In this regime, which is attracting interest both in semiconductor and superconducting systems, the light-matter coupling rate ΩR becomes comparable to the bare resonance frequency of photons ω0. In contrast to the dynamical Casimir effect and other pair creation mechanisms, this phenomenon does not require external forces or time dependent parameters in the Hamiltonian.
We propose a versatile, free-space cavity optomechanics platform built from two photonic crystal membranes, one of which is freely suspended, and designed to form a microcavity less than one wavelength long. This cavity features a series of photonic bound states in the continuum that, in principle, trap light forever and can be favorably used together with evanescent coupling for realizing various types of optomechanical couplings, such as linear or quadratic coupling of either dispersive or dissipative type, by tuning the photonic crystal patterning and cavity length. Crucially, this platform…
We theoretically investigate the effect of optical-force-mediated interactions onto the quantum dynamics of a pair of dielectric nanospheres optically trapped in two neighboring optical tweezers. Thanks to the interference between the tweezer beams and the elastically scattered light by the other nanosphere, the effective inter nanosphere coupling can reach the ultrastrong coupling regime. Experimentally accessible signatures of the entangled nature of the quantum ground state are highlighted, including entanglement witnesses based on position/momentum correlation functions and a sizable dynam…
We explore the effect of all-optical feedback on the steady state dynamics of optomechanical arrays arising from various topologies. First we consider an array comprised of a pair of independent optomechanical cavities coupled reversibly via their optical modes. Next we consider an optomechanical network formed from coupling two optical modes with interactions mediated via a common mechanical mode. Finally we extend the analysis to a large network of N-coupled optomechanical systems. Our results show implementing an-all optical feedback loop in each arrangement can enhance the degree of steady…
We investigate theoretically quantum effects of a cavity-atom system in which the upper two levels of a cascade-type three-level atom interact with a cavity field mode in the ultrastrong coupling regime. By exploiting the virtual photons carried by atom-cavity dressed states, we indicate how two external driving fields induce Raman transitions such that a continuous conversion of virtual photons into real photons can be achieved with a high probability. We present analytical and numerical solutions of the system. In addition, we show that the converted photons exhibit a bunching behavior in th…
We show that a cavity optomechanical system formed by a mechanical resonator simultaneously coupled to two modes of an optical cavity can be used for the implementation of a deterministic quantum phase gate between optical qubits associated with the two intracavity modes. The scheme is realizable for sufficiently strong single-photon optomechanical coupling in the resolved sideband regime, and is robust against cavity losses.
A conventional optomechanical system is composed of a mechanical mode and an optical mode interacting through a linear optomechanical coupling (LOC). We study how the presence of quadratic optomechanical coupling (QOC) in the conventional optomechanical system affects the system's stability and optical quadrature squeezing. We work in the resolved side-band limit with a high quality factor mechanical oscillator. In contrast to the conventional optomechanical systems, we find that strong squeezing of the cavity field can be achieved in presence of QOC along with LOC at lower pump powers and at …
Open-system dynamics play a key role in the experimental and theoretical study of cavity optomechanical systems. In many cases, the quantum Langevin equations have enabled excellent models for optical decoherence, yet a master-equation approach to the fully nonlinear optomechanical Hamiltonian has thus far proven more elusive. To address this outstanding question and broaden the mathematical tool set available, we derive a solution to the Lindblad master equation that models optical decoherence for a system evolving with the nonlinear optomechanical Hamiltonian. The method combines a Lie-algeb…
Nonreciprocal devices are indispensable for building quantum networks and ubiquitous in modern communication technology. Here, we use optomechanical interaction and linearly-coupled interaction to realize optical nonreciprocal transmission in a double-cavity optomechanical system. The scheme relies on the interference between the two interactions. We derive the essential conditions to realize perfect optical nonreciprocity in the system, and analyse the properties of optical nonreciprocal transmission and the output fields from mechanical mode. These results can be used to control optical tran…
We study the squeezing of output quadratures of an electro-magnetic field escaping from a resonator coupled to a general quantum system with arbitrary interaction strengths. The generalized theoretical analysis of output squeezing proposed here is valid for all the interaction regimes of cavity-quantum electrodynamics: from the weak to the strong, ultrastrong, and deep coupling regimes. For coupling rates comparable or larger then the cavity resonance frequency, the standard input-output theory for optical cavities fails to calculate the correct output field-quadratures and predicts a non-negl…
Here, we study the controllable optical responses in a two-cavity optomechanical system, especially on the $\mathit{perfect}$ optomechanically induced transparency (OMIT) in the model which has never been studied before. The results show that the perfect OMIT can still occur even with a large mechanical damping rate, and at the perfect transparency window the long-lived slow light can be achieved. In addition, we find that the conversion between the perfect OMIT and optomechanically induced absorption can be easily achieved just by adjusting the driving field strength of the second cavity. We …
We theoretically investigate the optical and mechanical properties of a double cavity optomechanical system with one stationary and two harmonically bound mirrors. We show that it is possible for the mechanical mirrors in this system to posses negative effective mass. Working within the strong coupling and the resolved sideband regime, we show that the displacement of the middle resonator is multistable under certain constrains. We also point to the existence of optomechanically induced absorption (OMIA) and Fano resonance. Owing to the negative effective mass, our scheme can be exploited in t…
Coherent quantum noise cancellation (CQNC) can be used in optomechanical sensors to surpass the standard quantum limit (SQL). In this paper, we investigate an optomechanical force sensor that uses the CQNC strategy by cascading the optomechanical system with an all-optical effective negative mass oscillator. Specifically, we analyze matching conditions, losses and compare the two possible arrangements in which either the optomechanical or the negative mass system couples first to light. While both of these orderings yield a sub-SQL performance, we find that placing the effective negative mass …
We propose a scheme that is able to generate the microwave controlled optical double optome-chanical induced transparency (OMIT) in a hybrid piezo-optomechanical cavity system, which a piezoelectric optomechanical crystal AlN-nanobeam resonator is placed in a superconducting microwave cavity, and the AlN-nanobeam resonator can be simultaneously driven by both the optical field via the radiation pressure and the microwave field via the piezoelectric interaction. We show that in the presence of a strong pumped optical field applied to the optomechanical crystal cavity through the optical wavegui…
The synchronization of the motion of microresonators has attracted considerable attention. Here we present theoretical methods to synchronize the chaotic motion of two optical cavity modes in an optomechanical system, in which one of the optical modes is strongly driven into chaotic motion and is coupled to another weakly-driven optical mode mediated by a mechanical resonator. In these optomechanical systems, we can obtain both complete and phase synchronization of the optical cavity modes in chaotic motion, starting from different initial states. We find that complete synchronization of chaos…
A quantum dipole interacting with an optical cavity is one of the key models in cavity quantum electrodynamics (cavity-QED). To treat this system theoretically, the typical approach is to truncate the dipole to two levels. However, it has been shown that in the ultrastrong-coupling regime, this truncation naively destroys gauge invariance. By truncating in a manner consistent with the gauge principle, we introduce master equations {for open systems} to compute gauge-invariant emission spectra, photon flux rates, and quantum correlation functions which show significant disagreement with previou…
The search for new control methods over light-matter interactions is one of the engines that advances fundamental physics and applied science alike. A specific class of light-matter interaction interfaces are setups coupling photons of distinct frequencies via matter. Such devices, nontrivial in design, could be endowed with multifunctional tasking. Here we envisage for the first time an optomechanical system that bridges optical and robust, high-frequency x-ray photons, which are otherwise notoriously difficult to control. The x-ray-optical system comprises of an optomechanical cavity and a m…
Witnessing quantumness in mesoscopic objects is an important milestone for both quantum technologies and foundational reasons. Cavity optomechanics offers the ideal system to achieve this by combing high precision optical measurements with mechanical oscillators. However, mechanical quantumness can only be established if the behaviour is incompatible with any classical description of an oscillator. After explicitly considering classical and hybrid quantum-classical descriptions of an optomechanical system, we rule out squeezing of the optical field as such a witness by showing it is also predi…
We study entanglement dynamics in dispersive optomechanical systems consisting of two optical modes and a mechanical oscillator inside an optical cavity. The two optical modes interact with the mechanical oscillator, but not directly with each other. The appearance of optical entanglement witnesses non-classicality of the oscillator. We study the dependence of the entanglement dynamics with the optomechanical coupling, the mean photon number in the cavity and the oscillator temperature. An experimental realization with ultracold atomic ensembles is proposed.
We study the directional amplification of an optical probe field in a three-mode optomechanical system, where the mechanical resonator interacts with two linearly-coupled optical cavities and the cavities are driven by strong optical pump fields. The optical probe field is injected into one of the cavity modes, and at the same time, the mechanical resonator is subject to a mechanical drive with the driving frequency equal to the frequency difference between the optical probe and pump fields. We show that the transmission of the probe field can be amplified in one direction and de-amplified in …
We propose a quantum simulation of a two-level atom coupled to a single mode of the electromagnetic field in the ultrastrong-coupling regime based upon resonant Raman transitions in an atom interacting with a high finesse optical cavity mode. We show by numerical simulation the possibility of realizing the scheme with a single rubidium atom, in which two hyperfine ground states make up the effective two-level system, and for cavity QED parameters that should be achievable with, for example, microtoroidal whispering-gallery-mode resonators. Our system also enables simulation of a generalized mo…
We analyze a cavity optomechanical setup, in which position of an oscillator modulates optical loss. We show that in such setup quantum limited position measurements can be performed if the external cavity coupling rate matches the optical loss rate, a condition known as "critical coupling". Additionally, under this condition the setup exhibits a number of potential benefits for practical operation including the complete absence of dynamical backaction, and hence optomechanical instability, and rejection of classical laser noise and thermal fluctuations of cavity frequency from the measurement…
We study the quantum dynamics of an optomechanical setup comprising two optical modes and one mechanical mode. We show that the same system can undergo a Dicke-Hepp-Lieb superradiant type phase transition. We found that the coupling between the momentum quadratures of the two optical fields give rise to a new critical point. We show that selective energy exchange between any two modes is possible by coherent control of the coupling parameters. In addition we also demonstrate the occurrence of Normal Mode Splitting (NMS) in the mechanical displacement spectrum.
Cavity and circuit QED study light-matter interaction at its most fundamental level. Yet, this interaction is most often neglected when considering the coupling of this system with an environment. In this paper, we show how this simplification, which leads to the standard quantum optics master equation, is at the root of unphysical effects. Including qubit relaxation and dephasing, and cavity relaxation, we derive a master equation that takes into account the qubit-resonator coupling. Special attention is given to the ultrastrong coupling regime, where the failure of the quantum optical master…
The dominant hurdle to the operation of optomechanical systems in the quantum regime is the coupling of the vibrating element to a thermal reservoir via mechanical supports. Here we propose a scheme that uses an optical spring to replace the mechanical support. We show that the resolved-sideband regime of cooling can be reached in a configuration using a high-reflectivity disk mirror held by an optical tweezer as one of the end-mirrors of a Fabry-Perot cavity. We find a final phonon occupation number of the trapped mirror ${\bar n}$= 0.14 for reasonable parameters, well within the quantum regi…
We theoretically investigate the emission spectrum of an optomechanical Tavis-Cummings model: two dipole-dipole interacting atoms coupled to an optomechanical cavity (OMC). In particular, we study the influence of dipole-dipole interaction (DDI) on the single-photon spectrum emitted by this hybrid system in the presence of a strong atom-cavity as well as strong optomechanical interaction (hereinafter called the strong-strong coupling). We also show that our analysis is amenable to inclusion of mechanical losses (under the weak mechanical damping limit) and single-photon loss through spontaneou…
In ultra- and deep-strong cavity quantum electrodynamics (QED) systems, many intriguing phenomena that do not conserve the excitation number are expected to occur. In this study, we theoretically analyze the optical response of an ultrastrong cavity-QED system in which an atom is coupled to the fundamental and third harmonic modes of a cavity, and report the possibility of deterministic three-photon down-conversion of itinerant photons upon reflection at the cavity. In the conventional parametric down-conversion, a strong input field is needed because of the smallness of the transition matrix …
We explore theoretically the bistable behavior of intracavity photon number in a two-mode cavity optomechanical system, where two cavity modes are coupled to a common mechanical resonator. When the two cavity modes are driven by two pump laser beams, respectively, we find that the optical bistability can be controlled by tuning the power and frequency of the pump beams. The common interaction to a mechanical mode enables one to control the bistable behavior in one cavity by adjusting the pump laser beam driving another cavity. We also show that both branches of optical bistability at photon nu…
Quantum oscillators in Gaussian states are often characterized by average occupation numbers that refer to a basis of eigenstates of the non-interacting oscillator Hamiltonian. We argue that quantum state purity is a more appropriate characteristic of such states, which can be applied to oscillators of any dimensionality. For a one-dimensional oscillator, the state purity is directly related to a thermal occupation number defined with respect to the number state basis in which the oscillator's quantum state is thermal. Thus, it naturally introduces a more versatile definition of an average occ…
Optomechanical thermometry is a precise and reference-free method to measure absolute temperature. While pumping high optical power is needed to overcome noise and reduce the integration time, there is actually an upper limit to the useful optical power regardless of all other nonideal effects. Side-band inequivalence is a nonlinear effect obtained by higher-order operator algebra in quantum optomechanics and equivalent experiments, which causes asymmetric frequency shifts in side-bands and also an additional difference in their population. This chapter discusses previously unnoticed nonlinear…
We study the optical transmission characteristics of pump-probe driven spinning optomechanical ring resonators coupled in a series configuration. After performing the steady-state analysis valid for an arbitrary number of resonators, as an example, we discuss the two-resonator problem in detail. Therein, we focus on how changing the optical Sagnac effect due to same or opposite spinning directions of resonators can lead to enhanced, non-reciprocal and delayed probe light transmission. This work can help in devising spin degree of freedom based novel devices of manipulating light propagation in…
Directional amplifiers are crucial nonreciprocal devices in both classical and quantum information processing. Here we propose a scheme for realizing a directional amplifier between optical and microwave fields based on an optomechanical system with optical gain, where an active optical cavity and two passive microwave cavities are, respectively, coupled to a common mechanical resonator via radiation pressure. The two passive cavities are coupled via hopping interaction to facilitate the directional amplification between the active and passive cavities. We obtain the condition of achieving opt…
