We present a detailed theoretical discussion of the effects of ubiquitous laser noise on cooling and the coherent dynamics in opto-mechanical systems. Phase fluctuations of the driving laser induce modulations of the linearized opto-mechanical coupling as well as a fluctuating force on the mirror due to variations of the mean cavity intensity. We first evaluate the influence of both effects on cavity cooling and find that for a small laser linewidth the dominant heating mechanism arises from intensity fluctuations. The resulting limit on the final occupation number scales linearly with the cavity intensity both under weak and strong coupling conditions. For the strong coupling regime, we also determine the effect of phase noise on the coherent transfer of single excitations between the cavity and the mechanical resonator and obtain a similar conclusion. Our results show that conditions for optical ground state cooling and coherent operations are experimentally feasible and thus laser phase noise does pose a challenge but not a stringent limitation for opto-mechanical systems.
We show how to apply the Leggett-Garg inequality to opto-electro-mechanical systems near their quantum ground state. We find that by using a dichotomic quantum non-demolition measurement (via, e.g., an additional circuit-QED measurement device) either on the cavity or on the nanomechanical system itself, the Leggett-Garg inequality is violated. We argue that only measurements on the mechanical system itself give a truly unambigous violation of the Leggett-Garg inequality for the mechanical system. In this case, a violation of the Leggett-Garg inequality indicates physics beyond that of macroscopic realism is occurring in the mechanical system. Finally, we discuss the difficulties in using unbound non-dichotomic observables with the Leggett-Garg inequality.
We implement a cavity opto-electromechanical system integrating electrical actuation capabilities of nanoelectromechanical devices with ultrasensitive mechanical transduction achieved via intra-cavity optomechanical coupling. Electrical gradient forces as large as 0.40 microN are realized, with simultaneous mechanical transduction sensitivity of 1.5 X 10^-18 m/rtHz representing a three orders of magnitude improvement over any nanoelectromechanical system to date. Opto-electromechanical feedback cooling is demonstrated, exhibiting strong squashing of the in-loop transduction signal. Out-of-loop transduction provides accurate temperature calibration even in the critical paradigm where measurement backaction induces opto-mechanical correlations.
One of the most important goals in quantum thermodynamics is to demonstrate advantages of thermodynamic protocols over their classical counterparts. For that, it is necessary to (i) develop theoretical tools and experimental set-ups to deal with quantum coherence in thermodynamic contexts, and to (ii) elucidate which properties are genuinely quantum in a thermodynamic process. In this short review, we discuss proposals to define and measure work fluctuations that allow to capture quantum interference phenomena. We also discuss fundamental limitations arising due to measurement back-action, as well as connections between work distributions and quantum contextuality. We hope the different results summarised here motivate further research on the role of quantum phenomena in thermodynamics.
Observing a physical quantity without disturbing it is a key capability for the control of individual quantum systems. Such back-action-evading or quantum-non-demolition measurements were first introduced in the 1970s in the context of gravitational wave detection to measure weak forces on test masses by high precision monitoring of their motion. Now, such techniques have become an indispensable tool in quantum science for preparing, manipulating, and detecting quantum states of light, atoms, and other quantum systems. Here we experimentally perform rapid optical quantum-noise-limited measurements of the position of a mechanical oscillator by using pulses of light with a duration much shorter than a period of mechanical motion. Using this back-action evading interaction we performed both state preparation and full state tomography of the mechanical motional state. We have reconstructed mechanical states with a position uncertainty reduced to 19 pm, limited by the quantum fluctuations of the optical pulse, and we have performed `cooling-by-measurement to reduce the mechanical mode temperature from an initial 1100 K to 16 K. Future improvements to this technique may allow for quantum squeezing of mechanical motion, even from room temperature, and reconstruction of non-classical states exhibiting negative regions in their phase-space quasi-probability distribution.
We propose two measurement-based schemes to cool a nonlinear mechanical resonator down to energies close to that of its ground state. The protocols rely on projective measurements of a spin degree of freedom, which interacts with the resonator through a Jaynes-Cummings interaction. We show the performance of these cooling schemes, that can be either concatenated -- i.e. built by repeating a sequence of dynamical evolutions followed by projective measurements -- or single-shot. We characterize the performance of both cooling schemes with numerical simulations, and pinpoint the effects of decoherence and noise mechanisms. Due to the ubiquity and experimental relevance of the Jaynes-Cummings model, we argue that our results can be applied in a variety of experimental setups.