In this paper, we propose an experimentally viable scheme to enhance the sensitivity of force detection in a hybrid optomechanical setup assisted by squeezed vacuum injection, beyond the standard quantum limit (SQL). The scheme is based on a combination of the coherent quantum noise cancellation (CQNC) strategy with a variational homodyne detection of the cavity output spectrum in which the phase of the local oscillator is optimized. In CQNC, realizing a negative-mass oscillator in the system leads to exact cancellation of the backaction noise from the mechanics due to destructive quantum interference. Squeezed vacuum injection enhances this cancellation and allows sub-SQL sensitivity to be reached in a wide frequency band and at much lower input laser powers. We show here that the adoption of variational homodyne readout enables us to enhance this noise cancellation up to $40 ~\mathrm{dB}$ compared to the standard case of detection of the optical output phase quadrature, leading to a remarkable force sensitivity of the order of $10^{-19} \mathrm{N}/\sqrt{\mathrm{Hz}}$, around 2-order enhancement compared to the standard case. Moreover, we show that at nonzero cavity detuning, the signal response can be amplified at a level three to five times larger than that in the standard case without variational homodyne readout, improving the signal-to-noise-ratio (SNR). Finally, the variational readout CQNC developed in this paper may be applied to other optomechanical-like platforms such as levitated systems and multimode optomechanical arrays or crystals as well as Josephson-based optomechanical systems.
We propose a simple optomechanical model in which a mechanical oscillator quadrature could be "cooled" well below its equilibrium temperature by applying a suitable feedback to drive the orthogonal quadrature by means of the homodyne current of the radiation field used to probe its position.
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 …
Homodyne and heterodyne detection represent "twin-pillars" of quantum displacement sensing using optical cavities, having permitted major breakthroughs including detection of gravitational waves and of the motion of quantum ground-state cooled mechanical oscillators. Both can suffer disadvantages as diagnostics in quantum optomechanics, either through symmetrisation (homodyne), or loss of correlations (heterodyne). We show that, for modest heterodyne beat frequencies ($Ω\sim ω_M/10 \gg Γ$), judicious construction of the autocorrelation of the measured current can either recover (i) a spectrum …
We propose and analyse a feasible experimental scheme for a quantum force sensor based on the elimination of back-action noise through coherent quantum noise cancellation (CQNC) in a hybrid atom-cavity optomechanical setup assisted with squeezed vacuum injection. The force detector, which allows for a continuous, broad-band detection of weak forces well below the standard quantum limit (SQL), is formed by a single optical cavity simultaneously coupled to a mechanical oscillator and to an ensemble of ultracold atoms. The latter acts as a negative-mass oscillator so that atomic noise cancels exa…
The coherent quantum noise cancellation (CQNC) strategy has been performed in the single-mode optomechanical systems to promote an ultra-sensitive metrology protocol to break the standard quantum limit. The key idea of CQNC is that the backaction noises arising from radiation pressure and driving can be offset by coupling the optical mode to a near-resonant ancillary mode. In this work, a continuous weak-force sensing under CQNC is developed in a double-mode optomechanical system consisted of two optical modes with distinct frequencies and a mechanical mode. In particular, under the asymmetric…
Using a flowchart representation of quantum optomechanical dynamics, we design coherent quantum-noise-cancellation schemes that can eliminate the back-action noise induced by radiation pressure at all frequencies and thus overcome the standard quantum limit of force sensing. The proposed schemes can be regarded as novel examples of coherent feedforward quantum control.
We present a way of measuring with high precision the anharmonicity of a quantum oscillator coupled to an optical field via radiation pressure. Our protocol uses a sequence of pulsed interactions to perform a loop in the phase space of the mechanical oscillator, which is prepared in a thermal state. We show how the optical field acquires a phase depending on the anharmonicity. Remarkably, one only needs small initial cooling of the mechanical motion to probe even small anharmonicities. Finally, by applying tools from quantum estimation theory, we calculate the ultimate bound on the estimation …
The optomechanical force sensor in non-Markovian environment for a mechanical oscillator is presented. By performing homodyne detection we obtain an generally expression for the output signal. It is shown that the weak force detection is sensitive to the non-Markovian environment. The additional noise can be obviously reduced comparing to the Markovian condition. Moreover, the optimal additional noise can be maintained in a rather low level without using assistant system or squeezing under available experimental condition in unsolved sideband regime. Our results provides a promising platform f…
We propose to use cavity optomechanical systems in the regime of optical bistability for the detection of weak harmonic forces. Due to the optomechanical coupling an external force on the mechanical oscillator modulates the resonance frequency of the cavity and consequently the switching rates between the two bistable branches. A large difference in the cavity output fields then leads to a strongly amplified homodyne signal. We determine the switching rates as a function of the cavity detuning from extensive numerical simulations of the stochastic master equation as appropriate for continuous …
Ponderomotive squeezing of the output light of an optical cavity has been recently observed in the MHz range in two different cavity optomechanical devices. Quadrature squeezing becomes particularly useful at lower spectral frequencies, for example in gravitational wave interferometers, despite being more sensitive to excess phase and frequency noise. Here we show a phase/frequency noise cancellation mechanism due to destructive interference which can facilitate the production of ponderomotive squeezing in the kHz range and we demonstrate it experimentally in an optomechanical system formed by…
We show that optomechanical systems in the quantum regime can be used to demonstrate EPR-type quantum entanglement between the optical field and the mechanical oscillator, via quantum-state steering. Namely, the conditional quantum state of the mechanical oscillator can be steered into different quantum states depending the choice made on which quadrature of the out-going field is to be measured via homodyne detection. More specifically, if quantum radiation pressure force dominates over thermal force, the oscillator's quantum state is steerable with a photodetection efficiency as low as 50%, …
Optomechanical detectors have reached the standard quantum limit in position and force sensing where measurement backaction noise starts to be the limiting factor for the sensitivity. A strategy to circumvent measurement backaction, and surpass the standard quantum limit, has been suggested by M. Tsang and C. Caves in Phys. Rev. Lett. 105 123601 (2010). We provide a detailed analysis of this method and assess its benefits, requirements, and limitations. We conclude that a proof-of-principle demonstration based on a micro-optomechanical system is demanding, but possible. However, for parameters…
We report on the cancellation of quantum back action noise in an optomechanical cavity. We perform two measurements of the displacement of the microresonator, one in reflection of the cavity, and one in transmission of the cavity. We show that measuring the amplitude quadrature of the light in transmission of the optomechanical cavity allows us to cancel the back action noise between 1 kHz and 50 kHz, and obtain a more sensitive measurement of the microresonator's position. To confirm that the back action is eliminated, we measure the noise in the transmission signal as a function of circulati…
We propose a new method for measurements of gravitational acceleration using a quantum optomechanical system. As a proof-of-concept, we investigate the fundamental sensitivity for a cavity optomechanical system for gravitational accelerometry with a light-matter interaction of the canonical `trilinear' radiation pressure form. The phase of the optical output of the cavity encodes the gravitational acceleration $g$ and is the only component which needs to be measured to perform the gravimetry. We analytically show that homodyne detection is the optimal readout in our scheme, based on the cyclic…
We provide a fully quantum description of a mechanical oscillator in the presence of thermal environmental noise by means of a quantum Langevin formulation based on quantum stochastic calculus. The system dynamics is determined by symmetry requirements and equipartition at equilibrium, while the environment is described by quantum Bose fields in a suitable non-Fock representation which allows for the introduction of temperature. A generic spectral density of the environment can be described by introducing its state trough a suitable P-representation. Including interaction of the mechanical osc…
Hybrid optomechanical systems are emerging as a fruitful architecture for quantum technologies. Hence, determining the relevant atom-light and light-mechanics couplings is an essential task in such systems. The fingerprint of these couplings is left in the global state of the system during non-equilibrium dynamics. However, in practice, performing measurements on the entire system is not feasible, and thus, one has to rely on partial access to one of the subsystems, namely the atom, the light, or the mechanics. Here, we perform a comprehensive analysis to determine the optimal subsystem for pr…
Sagnac speed meter (SSM) topology is known as an alternative technique to reduce quantum back-action in gravitational-wave interferometers. However, any potential imbalance of the main beamsplitter was shown to reduce the quantum noise superiority of speed meter at low frequencies, caused due to increased laser noise coupling to the detection port. In this paper, we show that implementing balanced homodyne readout scheme and for a particular choice of the local oscillator (LO) delivery port, the excess laser noise contribution to quantum noise limited sensitivity (QNLS) is partly compensated a…
In the past few years, coupling strengths between light and mechanical motion in optomechanical setups have improved by orders of magnitude. Here we show that, in the standard setup under continuous laser illumination, the steady state of the mechanical oscillator can develop a non-classical, strongly negative Wigner density if the optomechanical coupling is large at the single-photon level. Because of its robustness, such a Wigner density can be mapped using optical homodyne tomography. These features are observed near the onset of the instability towards self-induced oscillations. We show th…
We present a detailed study to analyse the Dicke quantum phase transition within the thermodynamic limit for an optomechanically driven Bose-Einstein condensates in a cavity. The photodetection-based quantum optical measurements have been performed to study the dynamics and excitations of this optomechanical Dicke system. For this, we discuss the eigenvalue analysis, fluorescence spectrum and the homodyne spectrum of the system. It has been shown that the normal phase is negligibly affected by the mechanical mode of the mirror while it has a significant effect in the superradiant phase. We hav…
We describe an optomechanical system in which the mean phonon number of a single mechanical mode conditionally displaces the amplitude of the optical field. Using homodyne detection of the output field we establish the conditions under which phonon number quantum jumps can be inferred from the measurement record: both the cavity damping rate and the measurement rate of the phonon number must be much greater than the thermalization rate of the mechanical mode. We present simulations of the conditional dynamics of the measured system using the stochastic master equation. In the good-measurement …
A significant challenge in the development of chip-scale cavity-optomechanical devices as testbeds for quantum experiments and classical metrology lies in the coupling of light from nanoscale optical mode volumes to conventional optical components such as lenses and fibers. In this work we demonstrate a high-efficiency, single-sided fiber-optic coupling platform for optomechanical cavities. By utilizing an adiabatic waveguide taper to transform a single optical mode between a photonic crystal zipper cavity and a permanently mounted fiber, we achieve a collection efficiency for intracavity phot…
Russian Quantum Center（俄罗斯量子中心）；Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology（莫斯科物理技术学院）；University of Oxford（牛津大学）
Complete characterization of states and processes that occur within quantum devices is crucial for understanding and testing their potential to outperform classical technologies for communications and computing. However, solving this task with current state-of-the-art techniques becomes unwieldy for large and complex quantum systems. Here we realize and experimentally demonstrate a method for complete characterization of a quantum harmonic oscillator based on an artificial neural network known as the restricted Boltzmann machine. We apply the method to optical homodyne tomography and show it t…
The measurement of weak continuous forces exerted on a mechanical oscillator is a fundamental problem in various physical experiments. It is fundamentally impeded by quantum back-action from the meter used to sense the displacement of the oscillator. In the context of interferometric displacement measurements, we here propose and demonstrate the working principle of a scheme for coherent back-action cancellation. By measuring the amplitude quadrature of the light reflected from a detuned optomechanical cavity inside which a stiff optical spring is generated, back-action can be cancelled in a n…
We apply the formalism of quantum estimation theory to extract information about potential collapse mechanisms of the continuous spontaneous localisation (CSL) form. In order to estimate the strength with which the field responsible for the CSL mechanism couples to massive systems, we consider the optomechanical interaction between a mechanical resonator and a cavity field. Our estimation strategy passes through the probing of either the state of the oscillator or that of the electromagnetic field that drives its motion. In particular, we concentrate on all-optical measurements, such as homody…
We show that back-action noise in interferometric measurements such as gravitational-waves detectors can be completely suppressed by a local control of mirrors motion. An optomechanical sensor with an optimized measurement strategy is used to monitor mirror displacements. A feedback loop then eliminates radiation-pressure effects without adding noise. This very efficient technique leads to an increased sensitivity for the interferometric measurement, which becomes only limited by phase noise. Back-action cancellation is furthermore insensitive to losses in the interferometer.
Compared to the quantum noise in the measurement of the translational motion of a suspended mirror using laser light, the quantum noise in the measurement of the angular motion of a suspended mirror has not been investigated intensively despite its potential importance. In this article, an expression for the quantum noise in the angular motion measurement is explicitly derived. The expression indicates that one quadrature of the vacuum field of the first-order Hermite-Gaussian mode of light causes quantum sensing noise and the other causes quantum backaction noise, or in other words the first-…
We study the effect of cavity damping asymmetries on backaction in a "membrane-in-the-middle" optomechanical system, where a mechanical mode modulates the coupling between two photonic modes. We show that in the adiabatic limit, this system generically realizes a dissipative optomechanical coupling, with an effective position-dependent photonic damping rate. The resulting quantum noise interference can be used to ground-state cool a mechanical resonator in the unresolved sideband regime. We explicitly demonstrate how quantum noise interference controls linear backaction effects, and show that …
We consider an oscillating micromirror replacing one of the two fixed mirrors of a Mach-Zehnder interferometer. In this ideal optical set-up the quantum oscillator is subjected to the radiation pressure interaction of travelling light waves, no cavity is involved. This configuration shows that squeezed light can be generated by pure scattering on a quantum system, without involving a cavity. The squeezing can be detected at the output ports of the interferometer either by direct detection or by measuring the spectrum of the difference current. We use the Hudson-Parthasarathy equation to model …
Entanglement generation at a macroscopic scale offers an exciting avenue to develop new quantum technologies and study fundamental physics on a tabletop. Cavity quantum optomechanics provides an ideal platform to generate and exploit such phenomena owing to the precision of quantum optics combined with recent experimental advances in optomechanical devices. In this work, we propose schemes operating outside the resolved-sideband regime, to prepare and verify both optical-mechanical and mechanical-mechanical entanglement. Our schemes employ pulsed interactions with a duration much less than the…
In this review, we study how a hybrid optomechanical system (OMS), in which a quantum micro- or nano-mechanical oscillator (MO) is coupled to the electromagnetic (EM) radiation pressure, consisting of an ensemble of ultracold atoms or an atomic Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC), can be used as an ultra precision quantum sensor for measuring very weak signals. As is well-known in any precise quantum measurement the competition between the shot noise (SN) and the backaction noise of measurement executes a limitation on the measurement precision which is the so-called standard quantum limit (SQL). I…
Quantum enhanced sensing is a powerful technique in which nonclassical states are used to improve the sensitivity of a measurement. For enhanced mechanical displacement sensing, squeezed states of light have been shown to reduce the photon counting noise that limits the measurement noise floor. It has long been predicted, however, that suppressing the noise floor with squeezed light should produce an unavoidable increase in radiation pressure noise that drives the mechanical system. Such nonclassical radiation pressure forces have thus far been hidden by insufficient measurement strengths and …
The coupling of laser light to a mechanical oscillator via radiation pressure leads to the emergence of quantum mechanical correlations between the amplitude and phase quadrature of the laser beam. These correlations form a generic non-classical resource which can be employed for quantum-enhanced force metrology, and give rise to ponderomotive squeezing in the limit of strong correlations. To date, this resource has only been observed in a handful of cryogenic cavity optomechanical experiments. Here, we demonstrate the ability to efficiently resolve optomechanical quantum correlations imprinte…
A continuous quantum field, such as a propagating beam of light, may be characterized by a squeezing spectrum that is inhomogeneous in frequency. We point out that homodyne detectors, which are commonly employed to detect quantum squeezing, are blind to squeezing spectra in which the correlation between amplitude and phase fluctuations is complex. We find theoretically that such complex squeezing is a component of ponderomotive squeezing of light through cavity optomechanics. We propose a detection scheme, called synodyne detection, which reveals complex squeezing and allows the accounting of …
Quantum mechanics dictates that the precision of physical measurements must be subject to certain constraints. In the case of inteferometric displacement measurements, these restrictions impose a 'standard quantum limit' (SQL), which optimally balances the precision of a measurement with its unwanted backaction. To go beyond this limit, one must devise more sophisticated measurement techniques, which either 'evade' the backaction of the measurement, or achieve clever cancellation of the unwanted noise at the detector. In the half-century since the SQL was established, systems ranging from LIGO…
Under a strong quantum measurement, the motion of an oscillator is disturbed by the measurement back-action, as required by the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. When a mechanical oscillator is continuously monitored via an electromagnetic cavity, as in a cavity optomechanical measurement, the back-action is manifest by the shot noise of incoming photons that becomes imprinted onto the motion of the oscillator. Following the photons leaving the cavity, the correlations appear as squeezing of quantum noise in the emitted field. Here we observe such "ponderomotive" squeezing in the microwave dom…
Thermal noise generally greatly exceeds quantum noise in optomechanical devices unless the mechanical frequency is very high or the thermodynamic temperature is very low. This paper addresses the design concept for a novel optomechanical device capable of ultrahigh quality factors in the audio frequency band with negligible thermal noise. The proposed system consists of a minimally supported millimeter scale pendulum mounted in a Double End-Mirror Sloshing (DEMS) cavity that is topologically equivalent to a Membrane-in-the-Middle (MIM) cavity. The radiation pressure inside the high-finesse cav…
