We present a quantum-mechanical analysis of a nonlinear interferometer that achieves optical switching via cross-phase modulation resulting from the Kerr effect. We show how it performs as a very precise optical regenerator, highly improving the transmitted bit-error rate in the presence of loss.
We propose a technique aimed at cooling a harmonically oscillating mirror to its quantum mechanical ground state starting from room temperature. Our method, which involves the two-sided irradiation of the vibrating mirror inside an optical cavity, combines several advantages over the two-mirror arrangements being used currently. For comparable parameters the three-mirror configuration provides a stiffer trap for the oscillating mirror. Furthermore it prevents bistability from limiting the use of higher laser powers for mirror trapping, and also partially does so for mirror cooling. Lastly, it …
We describe an experiment in which we have used a cold damping feedback mechanism to reduce the thermal noise of a mirror around its mechanical resonance frequency. The monitoring of the brownian motion of the mirror allows to apply an additional viscous force without any thermal fluctuations associated. This scheme has been experimentally implemented with the radiation pressure of an intensity-modulated laser beam. Large noise reductions, up to 30 dB, have been obtained. We have also checked the mechanical response of the cold damped mirror, and monitored its transient evolution between the c…
We report an efficient mechanism to generate a squeezed state of a mechanical mirror in an optomechanical system. We use especially tuned parametric amplifier (PA) inside the cavity and the parametric photon phonon processes to transfer quantum squeezing from photons to phonons with almost 100\% efficiency. We get 50\% squeezing of the mechanical mirror which is limited by the PA. We present analytical results for the mechanical squeezing thus enabling one to understand the dependence of squeezing on system parameters like gain of PA, cooperativity, temperature. As in cooling experiments the d…
We investigate a hybrid optomechanical system comprised of a mechanical oscillator and an atomic 3-level ensemble within an optical cavity. We show that a suitably tailored cavity field response via Electromagnetically Induced Transparency (EIT) in the atomic medium allows for strong coupling of the mechanical mirror oscillations to the collective atomic ground-state spin. This facilitates ground-state cooling of the mirror motion, quantum state mapping and robust atom-mirror entanglement even for cavity widths larger than the mechanical oscillator frequency.
The generation of quantum entanglement of macroscopic or mesoscopic bodies in mechanical motion is generally bounded by the thermal fluctuation exerted by their environments. Here we propose a scheme to establish stationary entanglement between two mechanically oscillating mirrors of a cavity. It is revealed that, by applying a broadband squeezed laser acting as a squeezed-vacuum reservoir to the cavity, a stable entanglement between the mechanical mirrors can be generated. Using the adiabatic elimination and master equation methods, we analytically find that the generated entanglement is esse…
We consider a small partially reflecting vibrating mirror coupled dispersively to a single optical mode of a high finesse cavity. We show this arrangement can be used to implement quantum squeezing of the mechanically oscillating mirror.
We show that one can cool a micro-mechanical oscillator to its quantum ground state using radiation pressure in an appropriately detuned cavity (self-cooling). From a simple theory based on Heisenberg-Langevin equations we find that optimal self-cooling occurs in the good cavity regime, when the cavity bandwidth is smaller than the mechanical frequency, but still larger than the effective mechanical damping. In this case the intracavity field and the vibrational mechanical mode coherently exchange their fluctuations. We also present dynamical calculations which show how to access the mirror fi…
We propose a simple method to generate quantum entanglement between two macroscopic mechanical resonators in a two-cavity optomechanical system. This entanglement is induced by the radiation pressure of a single photon hopping between the two cavities. Our results are analytical, so that the entangled states are explicitly shown. Up to local operations, these states are two-mode three-component states, and hence the degree of entanglement can be well quantified by the concurrence. By analyzing the system parameters, we find that, to achieve a maximum average entanglement, the system should wor…
We consider a hybrid optomechanical system which is composed of the atomic ensemble and a standard optomechanical cavity driven by the periodically modulated external laser field. We investigate the asymptotic behaviors of Heisenberg operator first moments and clearly show the approaching process between the exact numerical results and analytical solutions. Based on the specific modulation forms of external driving and effective optomechanical coupling, we discuss in detail the atom-mirror entanglement enhancement, respectively. Compared with the constant driving regime, the entanglement can b…
We propose entanglement for hybrid optomechanical system consisting of Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) inside a single-mode high-Q Fabry-Perot cavity with a vibrating end mirror (mechanical mirror). The intracavity field couples the vibrating end mirror with collective atomic density of the BEC. We show that the radiation pressure generates the stationary entanglement of three bipartite subsystems, i.e, field-mechanical mirror, field-BEC and mechanical mirror-atoms. The resulting entanglement is fragile with respect to temperature.
Proposing an optomechanical cavity modulated periodically, we study the modulation synchronization of mechanical modes of the mirrors. A periodic modulation is applied to one of the mirrors, where the second mirror has the capability of oscillation, without any modulation for that. As a result, we find a phase-locking synchronization between the mechanical modes of the mirrors and enhancement of quantum synchronization by having the periodic modulation. Using the fact that, periodic modulation can make the squeezed states, we show that there is a robust synchronization of periodic modulation b…
An interferometric arrangement is proposed in which the technique of weak value amplification is implemented in order to enlarge the effect of a single photon on the quadratures of a movable mirror of an optical cavity. The photon interacts weakly with the mirror via radiation pressure and is post-selected in the dark port of the interferometer. The real and imaginary parts of weak values of angular momentum type photonic operators produce an amplification of the mirror quadratures, which is large as compared to the scenario in which all photons are taken into consideration, i.e. when no post-…
We investigate the creation of squeezed states of a vibrating membrane or a movable mirror in an opto-mechanical system. An optical cavity is driven by squeezed light and couples via radiation pressure to the membrane/mirror, effectively providing a squeezed heat-bath for the mechanical oscillator. Under the conditions of laser cooling to the ground state, we find an efficient transfer of squeezing with roughly 60% of light squeezing conveyed to the membrane/mirror (on a dB scale). We determine the requirements on the carrier frequency and the bandwidth of squeezed light. Beyond the conditions…
We theoretically investigate the stability of a two cascaded cavity optomechanical system with optical parametric amplifiers (OPAs) inside the two coupled cavities, and study the steady-state entanglement between two distant mechanical resonators. We show that the parameter regime where the system is unstable without OPAs, such as relatively high laser intensity and blue detuning, can be exploited to build the steady-state mechanical entanglement by modulating the parametric gain. The application of OPAs is helpful to preserve the mechanical entanglement suffered from the dissipation at some f…
We describe an experiment in which a laser beam is sent into a high-finesse optical cavity with a mirror coated on a mechanical resonator. We show that the reflected light is very sensitive to small mirror displacements. We have observed the Brownian motion of the resonator with a very high sensitivity.
We theoretically investigate the coupling of an ultracold three-level atomic gas and a nano-mechanical mirror via classical electromagnetic radiation. The radiation pressure on the mirror is modulated by absorption of a probe light field, caused by the atoms which are electromagnetically rendered nearly transparent, allowing the gas to affect the mirror. In turn, the mirror can affect the gas as its vibrations generate opto-mechanical sidebands in the control field. We show that the sidebands cause modulations of the probe intensity at the mirror frequency, which can be enhanced near atomic re…
Two close parallel mirrors attract due to a small force (Casimir effect) originating from the electromagnetic quantum vacuum uctuations of the electromagnetic field. These vacuum uctuations can also induce motional forces exerted upon one mirror when the other one moves. Here we consider an optomechanical system consisting of two vibrating mirrors coupled to an optical resonator. We find that motional forces can determine noticeable coupling rates between the two spatially separated vibrating mirrors. We show that, by tuning the two mechanical oscillators into resonance, energy is exchanged be…
This paper is concerned with quantum dynamics of a system coupled to a critical reservoir. In this context, we employ the Dicke model which is known to exhibit a super radiant quantum phase transition (QPT) and we allow one of the mirrors to move under a linear restoring force. The electromagnetic field couples to the movable mirror though radiation pressure just like in typical optomechanical setups. We show that, in the thermodynamical limit, the super-radiant phase induces a classical driving force on the mirror without causing decoherence.
We show that the optomechanical coupling between an optical cavity mode and the two movable cavity end mirrors is able to entangle two different macroscopic oscillation modes of the mirrors. This continuous variable entanglement is maintained by the light bouncing between the mirrors and is robust against thermal noise. In fact, it could be experimentally demonstrated using present technology.
We present a one-dimensional scattering theory which enables us to describe a wealth of effects arising from the coupling of the motional degree of freedom of scatterers to the electromagnetic field. Multiple scattering to all orders is taken into account. The theory is applied to describe the scheme of a Fabry-Perot resonator with one of its mirrors moving. The friction force, as well as the diffusion, acting on the moving mirror is derived. In the limit of a small reflection coefficient, the same model provides for the description of the mechanical effect of light on an atom moving in front …
We study occurrence of chaos in a four-mirror optomechanical cavity with mechanical drives externally interacting with two transversely located moving-end mirrors of the cavity. The strong cavity mode, driven by the pump laser, excites mechanical oscillations in both moving-end mirrors with its radiation pressure. These radiation-pressure-induced mechanical effects then lead to the indirect coupling between two transverse mirrors, where intra-cavity field mimics as a spring between two mechanical objects. By computing Poincaré surface of sections for both mirrors over a wide interval of initia…
This study is aimed at investigating the feasibility of generating quantum entanglement between macroscopic mechanical mirrors in optomechanical systems while under continuous measurement and feedback control. We carefully derive a covariance matrix for mechanical mirrors in a steady state, employing the Kalman filtering problem with an assumed dominant cavity photon dissipation, such that the common and differential modes of the mirrors are squeezed by the action of measuring the output light beams. We demonstrate that entanglement between the mechanical mirrors is generated when the states o…
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 discuss how the optomechanical coupling provided by radiation pressure can be used to cool macroscopic collective degrees of freedom, as vibrational modes of movable mirrors. Cooling is achieved using a phase-sensitive feedback-loop which effectively overdamps the mirrors motion without increasing the thermal noise. Feedback results able to bring macroscopic objects down to the quantum limit. In particular, it is possible to achieve squeezing and entanglement.
We demonstrate coherent control of optomechanically induced transparency and Fano resonances in a four mirror macroscopic optomechanical cavity, with two movable mirrors, each driven by an external mechanical pump. The variable control of the amplitude and phase of the coherent mechanical pumps provides a means of tuning the shape and nature of the Fano profiles. Further, our scheme shows the occurrence of tunable optomechanical features, even at very low mechanical driving field amplitudes, in macroscopic optomechanical cavities.
We study a hybrid semiconductor-optomechanical system, which consists of a cavity with an oscillating mirror made by semiconducting materials or with a semiconducting membrane inside. The cavity photons and the excitons in the oscillating mirror or semiconducting membrane form into polaritons. And correspondingly, the optomechanical interaction between the cavity photons and the mirror or membrane is changed into the polariton-mechanical interaction. We theoretically study the eigenenergies and eigenfunctions of this tripartite hybrid system with the generalized rotating-wave approximation. We…
We theoretically investigate the dispersive interaction of a Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) trapped inside an optomechanical cavity with a moving end mirror in the presence of the laser phase noise (LPN) as well as the atomic collisions. We assume that the effective frequency of the optical mode is much greater than those of the mechanical and the Bogoliubov modes of the movable mirror and the BEC . In the adiabatic approximation where the damping rate of the cavity is faster than those of the other modes, the system behaves as an effective two-mode model in which the atomic and mechanical mod…
To observe the dynamical Casimir effect (DCE) induced by a moving mirror is a long-standing challenge because the mirror velocity needs to approach the speed of light. Here, we present an experimentally feasible method for observing this mechanical DCE in an optomechanical system. It employs a detuned, parametric driving to squeeze a cavity mode, so that the mechanical mode, with a typical resonance frequency, can parametrically and resonantly couple to the squeezed cavity mode, thus leading to a resonantly amplified DCE in the squeezed frame. The DCE process can be interpreted as {\it mechani…
Quantum coherence is one of the most intriguing applications of quantum mechanics, and has led to interesting phenomena and uncommon results. Here we show that in a stark contrast to the usual red-detuned condition to observe bistability in single-mode optomechanics, the optical intensities exhibit bistability for all values of cavity-laser detuning due to intermode coupling induced by the two-photon coherence. Interestingly, an unconventional bistability with "ribbon"-shaped hysteresis can be observed for blue-detuned laser frequencies. We also demonstrate that the two-photon coherence leads …
We demonstrate passive feedback cooling of a mechanical resonator based on radiation pressure forces and assisted by photothermal forces in a high-finesse optical cavity. The resonator is a free-standing high-reflectance micro-mirror (of mass m=400ng and mechanical quality factor Q=10^4) that is used as back-mirror in a detuned Fabry-Perot cavity of optical finesse F=500. We observe an increased damping in the dynamics of the mechanical oscillator by a factor of 30 and a corresponding cooling of the oscillator modes below 10 K starting from room temperature. This effect is an important ingredi…
We show that an atom can be coupled to a mechanical oscillator via quantum vacuum fluctuations of a cavity field enabling energy transfer processes between them. In a hybrid quantum system consisting of a cavity resonator with a movable mirror and an atom, these processes are dominated by two pair-creation mechanisms: the counterrotating (atom-cavity system) and dynamical Casimir interaction terms (optomechanical system). Because of these two pair-creation mechanisms, the resonant atom-mirror coupling is the result of high-order virtual processes with different transition paths well described …
Recent experimental progress in table-top experiments or gravitational-wave interferometers has enlightened the unique displacement sensitivity offered by optical interferometry. As the mirrors move in response to radiation pressure, higher power operation, though crucial for further sensitivity enhancement, will however increase quantum effects of radiation pressure, or even jeopardize the stable operation of the detuned cavities proposed for next-generation interferometers. The appearance of such optomechanical instabilities is the result of the nonlinear interplay between the motion of the …
We predict ground state cooling of a micro-mechanical oscillator, i.e. a vibrating end-mirror of an optical cavity, by resonant coupling of mirror vibrations to a narrow internal optical transition of an ensemble of two level systems. The particles represented by a collective mesoscopic spin model implement, together with the cavity, an efficient, frequency tailorable zero temperature loss channel which can be turned to a gain channel of pump. As opposed to the case of resolved-sideband cavity cooling requiring a small cavity linewidth, one can work here with low finesses and very small cavity…
We investigate a hybrid system consisting of an atomic ensemble trapped inside a dissipative optomechanical cavity assisted with the perturbative oscillator-qubit coupling. It is shown that such a hybrid system is very suitable for generating stationary squeezing of the mirror motion in the long-time limit under the unresolved sideband regime. Based on the approaches of master equation and covariance matrix, we discuss the respective squeezing effects in detail and find that in both approaches, simplifying the system dynamics with adiabatic elimination of the highly dissipative cavity mode is …
We propose a feasible scheme to cool down a mechanical resonator (MR) in a three-mirror cavity optomechanical system with controllable external optical drives. Under the Born-Oppenheimer (BO) approximation, the whole dynamics of the mechanical resonator and cavities is reduced to that of a time-dependent harmonic oscillator, whose effective frequency can be controlled through the optical driving fields. The fast cooling of the MR can be realized by controlling the amplitude of the optical drives. Significantly, we further show that the ground-state cooling may be achieved via the three-mirror …
We present an experimental study of the internal mechanical vibration modes of a mirror. We determine the frequency repartition of acoustic resonances via a spectral analysis of the Brownian motion of the mirror, and the spatial profile of the acoustic modes by monitoring their mechanical response to a resonant radiation pressure force swept across the mirror surface. We have applied this technique to mirrors with cylindrical and plano-convex geometries, and compared the experimental results to theoretical predictions. We have in particular observed the gaussian modes predicted for plano-conve…
We investigate the dynamics of an optomechanical system where a cavity with a movable mirror involves a degenerate optical parametric amplifier and is driven by a periodically modulated laser field. Our results show that the cooperation between the parametric driving and periodically modulated cavity driving results in a two-fold squeezing on the movable cavity mirror that acts as a mechanical oscillator. This allows the fluctuation of the mechanical oscillator in one quadrature (momentum or position) to be reduced to a level that cannot be reached by solely applying either of these two drivin…
Optomechanical systems have been attracting intensive attention in various physical experiments. With an optomechanical system, the displacement of or the force acting on a mechanical oscillator can be precisely measured by utilizing optical interferometry. As a mechanical oscillator, a suspended mirror is often used in over milligram scale optomechanical systems. However, the tiny suspended mirror in a linear cavity can be unstable in its yaw rotational degree of freedom due to optical radiation pressure. This instability curbs the optical power that the cavity can accumulate in it, and impos…
We consider an optomechanical cavity made by two moving mirrors which contains a Kerr-down conversion nonlinear crystal. We show that the coherent oscillations of the two mechanical oscil- lators can lead to splitting in the electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) resonance, and appearance of an absorption peak within the transparency window. In this configuration the coher- ent induced splitting of EIT is similar to driving a hyperfine transition in an atomic Lambda-type three-level system by a radio-frequency or microwave field. Also, we show that the presence of non- linearity provid…
We propose a scheme for creating quantum superposition states involving of order $10^{14}$ atoms via the interaction of a single photon with a tiny mirror. This mirror, mounted on a high-quality mechanical oscillator, is part of a high-finesse optical cavity which forms one arm of a Michelson interferometer. By observing the interference of the photon only, one can study the creation and decoherence of superpositions involving the mirror. All experimental requirements appear to be within reach of current technology.
Standard Quantum Limit (SQL) of a classical mechanical force detection results from quantum back action impinged by the meter on a probe mechanical transducer perturbed by the force of interest. In this paper we introduce a technique of continuous \vy{broadband} back action avoiding measurements for the case of a resonant signal force acting on a linear mechanical oscillator supporting one of mirrors of an optical Michelson-Sagnac Interferometer (MSI). The interferometer with the movable mirror is an opto-mechanical transducer able to support polychromatic probe field. The method involves a di…
We consider an optical cavity enclosed by a freely moving mirror attached to a spring and we study the quantum friction effect exerted by the dynamical Casimir emission on the mechanical motion of the mirror. Observable signatures of this simplest example of back-reaction effect are studied in both the ring-down oscillations of the mirror motion and in its steady-state motion under a monochromatic force. Analytical expressions are found in simple yet relevant cases and compared to complete numerical solution of the master equation. A circuit-QED device allowing for experimental observation of …
Thermal noise of a mirror is one of the most important issues in high precision measurements such as gravitational-wave detection or cold damping experiments. It has been pointed out that thermal noise of a mirror with multi-layer coatings can be reduced by mechanical separation of the layers. In this paper, we introduce a way to further reduce thermal noise by locking the mechanically separated mirrors. The reduction is limited by the standard quantum limit of control noise, but it can be overcome with a quantum-non-demolition technique, which finally raises a possibility of complete eliminat…
We propose an experimentally feasible scheme to teleport an unkown quantum state onto the vibrational degree of freedom of a macroscopic mirror. The quantum channel between the two parties is established by exploiting radiation pressure effects.
The problem of the reflectance of a photon by a metallic mirror whose position is treated quantum mechanically is considered. The interaction between the metallic surface and the light is treated classically. It is shown that the reflectance depends on the spread of the wavefunction describing the reflecting surface along its normal. Considering this decrease on the mirror reflectance, it is shown by first principles that it is impossible to achieve a highly entangled state between a photon and a mirror when the photon can be reflected only once.
We perform a quantum mechanical analysis of the pendular cavity, using the positive-P representation, showing that the quantum state of the moving mirror, a macroscopic object, has noticeable effects on the dynamics. This system has previously been proposed as a candidate for the quantum-limited measurement of small displacements of the mirror due to radiation pressure, for the production of states with entanglement between the mirror and the field, and even for superposition states of the mirror. However, when we treat the oscillating mirror quantum mechanically, we find that it always oscill…
In this paper, we theoretically investigate the displacement and momentum fluctuations spectra of the movable mirror in a standard optomechanical system driven by a finite bandwidth squeezed vacuum light accompanying a coherent laser field. Two cases in which the squeezed vacuum is generated by degenerated and non-degenerate parametric oscillators (DPO and NDPO) are considered. We find that for the case of finite bandwidth squeezed vacuum injection, the two spectra exhibit unique features, which strongly differ from those of broadband squeezing excitation. In particular, the spectra exhibit a …
We show theoretically that it is possible to trap and cool the rotational motion of a macroscopic mirror made of a perfectly reflecting spiral phase element using orbital angular momentum transfer from a Laguerre-Gaussian optical field. This technique offers a promising route to the placement of the rotor in its quantum mechanical ground state in the presence of thermal noise. It also opens up the possibility of simultaneously cooling a vibrational mode of the same mirror. Lastly, the proposed design may serve as a sensitive torsional balance in the quantum regime.
The radiation pressure coupling between a low-mass moving mirror and an incident light field has been experimentally studied in a high-finesse Fabry-Perot cavity. Using classical intensity noise in order to mimic radiation pressure quantum fluctuations, the physics of ponderomotive squeezing comes into play as a result of the opto-mechanical correlations between the field quadratures. The same scheme can be used to probe ponderomotive squeezing at the quantum level, thus opening new routes in quantum optics and high sensitivity measurement experiments.
We re-analyse the optomechanical interferometer experiment proposed by Marshall, Simon, Penrose and Bouwmeester with the help of a recently developed quantum-classical hybrid theory. This leads to an alternative evaluation of the mirror induced decoherence. Surprisingly, we find that it behaves essentially in the same way for suitable initial conditions and experimentally relevant parameters, no matter whether the mirror is considered a classical or quantum mechanical object. We discuss the parameter ranges where this result holds and possible implications for a test of spontaneous collapse mo…
We adapt the Bender-Wu algorithm to solve perturbatively but very efficiently the eigenvalue problem of "relativistic" quantum mechanical problems whose Hamiltonians are difference operators of the exponential-polynomial type. We implement the algorithm in the function BWDifference in the updated Mathematica package BenderWu. With the help of BWDifference, we survey quantum mirror curves of toric fano Calabi-Yau threefolds, and find strong evidence that not only are the perturbative eigenenergies of the associated 1d quantum mechanical problems Borel summable, but also that the Borel sums are …
We propose a theoretical scheme for atomic cooling, i.e. the compression of both velocity and position distribution of particles in motion. This is achieved by collisions of the particles with a combination of a moving atomic mirror and a moving atom diode. An atom diode is a unidirectional barrier, i.e. an optical device through which an atom can pass in one direction only. We show that the efficiency of the scheme depends on the trajectory of the diode and the mirror. We examine both the classical and quantum mechanical descriptions of the scheme, along with the numerical simulations to show…
We demonstrate the feasibility of levitating a small mirror using only radiation pressure. In our scheme, the mirror is supported by a tripod where each leg of the tripod is a Fabry-Perot cavity. The macroscopic state of the mirror is coherently coupled to the supporting cavity modes allowing coherent interrogation and manipulation of the mirror motion. The proposed scheme is an extreme example of the optical spring, where a mechanical oscillator is isolated from the environment and its mechanical frequency and macroscopic state can be manipulated solely through optical fields. We model the st…