Macroscopic Optomechanics from Displaced Single-Photon Entanglement
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Citations
Macroscopic quantum states: measures, fragility and implementations
Generation of single photons with highly tunable wave shape from a cold atomic ensemble
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Mesoscopic Interference for Metric and Curvature (MIMAC) & Gravitational Wave Detection
Intracavity‐Squeezed Optomechanical Cooling
Related Papers (5)
Frequently Asked Questions (16)
Q2. What is the first exponential term in the photon number space?
The first exponential term corresponds to the variation of the cavity length and is quadratic in the photon number because the mean position of the mechanical oscillator depends on the photon number.
Q3. How long does it take to observe a decoherence?
In other words, for a base temperature of T ¼ 800 mK and a mechanical quality factor of Qm ¼ 106, conventional decoherence operates on a time scale of 1 μs, which is long enough to observe optomechanical entanglement.
Q4. What is the nature of the observed decoherence?
Note that in addition to absolute decoherence rates, the scaling behavior with respect to mechanical parameters, e.g., the mass, provides an independent assessment of the nature of the observed decoherence (see the Supplemental Material [32]).
Q5. What is the simplest way to test the decoherence of a optical mirror?
The surrounding temperature T must also be low enoughso that the effect of conventional (environmentally induced) decoherence [6] is negligible on the time scale of the decoherence being probed.
Q6. What is the simplest way to avoid this nonlinear behavior?
To avoid this nonlinear behavior, the authors consider the pulsed regime where the interaction time τ is much smaller than the mechanical period [sinðωmτÞ ∼ ωmτ, cf. below for the detailed conditions].
Q7. What is the simplest explanation of the entanglement of the optical and mechanical modes?
—Consider an optomechanical cavity described by H ¼ ℏωmm†m− ℏg0a†aðm† þmÞ, where ωm is the angular frequency of the center of mass motion of the mechanical system, m, m† (a, a†) are the bosonic operators for the phononic (photonic) modes, and g0 ¼ ðωc=LÞ ffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi ℏ=2Mωm p for a FabryPerot cavity with a mechanically moving end mirror (ωc is the optical angular frequency, L is the cavity length, and M is the effective mass of the mechanical mode).
Q8. How does the entangled state of the optical system be created?
Ourproposal starts with an optical entangled state of the type jþ̄iAj−iB − j−̄iAjþiB, involving two spatial modes A and B. Concretely, this state is obtained by sending a single photon into a beam splitter (with output modes A and B) and by subsequently applying a phase-space displacement on A.
Q9. What is the simplest way to measure a photonic cavity?
The optomechanical photonic crystal cavity device introduced in Ref. [41] could exhibit correlations of 0.6 and an interference visibility of 0.95 at a temperature of a few kelvins, while more massive systems, like the one proposed before, open up a way to measure unconventional decoherence models.
Q10. What is the simplest way to create a superposition of mechanical states?
In the framework of optically controlled mechanical devices [18], the proposals [19,20] have the potential to create a superposition of mechanical states with a distance of the order of the mechanical zero-point fluctuation where the effects of unconventional decoherences might be observable [21,22].
Q11. What is the simplest way to detect macroscopic entanglement?
The authors have proposed a way for creating and detecting macroscopic optomechanical entanglement that combines displaced single-photon entanglement and pulsed optomechanical interaction.
Q12. What is the amplitude of the mechanical state?
According to Ref. [19], they induce a coherent displacement of the mechanical state whose amplitude varies periodically in time eiðg20n2=ω2mÞðωmt−sinðωmtÞÞjðg0n=ωmÞð1 − e−iωmtÞiM jniA.
Q13. What is the evidence for the entanglement of the mirror?
—The authors can prove that the mirror is entangled with the optical modes from an entanglement witness that uses the values of {P E , P E∓} andN AB only (see the Supplemental Material [32]).
Q14. What is the support for this work?
This work was supported by the Swiss NCCR QSIT, the Austrian Science Fund FWF (SFB FoQuS, P24273-N16, SFB F40-FoQus F4012-N16), the Vienna Science and Thechnology Fund WWTF, the European Research Council ERC (StG QOM), and the European Commission (IP SIQS, ITN cQOM).
Q15. What is the way to test the entanglement of the optical and mechanical systems?
This relaxes the constraints on the initial cooling of the mechanical oscillator and makes their proposal well suited to test unconventional decoherence processes, as the authors show below.
Q16. What is the essence of macroentangled states?
The authors are retrieving what seems to be the essence of macroentangled states: although they involve components that can easily be distinguishedwithout microscopic resolution, one needs detectors with a very high precision to reveal their quantum nature [28,35].