No Arabic abstract
Accessing distinctly quantum aspects of the interaction between light and the position of a mechanical object has been an outstanding challenge to cavity-optomechanical systems. Only cold-atom implementations of cavity optomechanics have indicated effects of the quantum fluctuations in the optical radiation pressure force. Here we use such a system, in which quantum photon-number fluctuations significantly drive the center of mass of an atomic ensemble inside a Fabry-Perot cavity. We show that the optomechanical response both amplifies and ponderomotively squeezes the quantum light field. We also demonstrate that classical optical fluctuations can be attenuated by 26 dB or amplified by 20 dB with a weak input pump power of < 40 pW, and characterize the optomechanical amplifiers frequency-dependent gain and phase response in both the amplitude and phase-modulation quadratures.
The dispersive interaction of a Bose-Einstein condensate with a single mode of a high-finesse optical cavity realizes the radiation pressure coupling Hamiltonian. In this system the role of the mechanical oscillator is played by a single condensate excitation mode that is selected by the cavity mode function. We study the effect of atomic s-wave collisions and show that it merely renormalizes parameters of the usual optomechanical interaction. Moreover, we show that even in the case of strong harmonic confinement---which invalidates the use of Bloch states---a single excitation mode of the Bose-Einstein condensate couples significantly to the light field, that is the simplified picture of a single mechanical oscillator mode remains valid.
We propose to implement the Jaynes-Cummings model by coupling a few-micrometer large atomic ensemble to a quantized cavity mode and classical laser fields. A two-photon transition resonantly couples the single-atom ground state |g> to a Rydberg state |e> via a non-resonant intermediate state |i>, but due to the interaction between Rydberg atoms only a single atom can be resonantly excited in the ensemble. This restricts the state space of the ensemble to the collective ground state |G> and the collectively excited state |E> with a single Rydberg excitation distributed evenly on all atoms. The collectively enhanced coupling of all atoms to the cavity field with coherent coupling strengths which are much larger than the decay rates in the system leads to the strong coupling regime of the resulting effective Jaynes-Cummings model. We use numerical simulations to show that the cavity transmission can be used to reveal detailed properties of the Jaynes-Cummings ladder of excited states, and that the atomic nonlinearity gives rise to highly non-trivial photon emission from the cavity. Finally, we suggest that the absence of interactions between remote Rydberg atoms may, due to a combinatorial effect, induce a cavity-assisted excitation blockade whose range is larger than the typical Rydberg dipole-dipole interaction length.
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 a Fabry-P{e}rot cavity with a micro-mechanical mirror.
Cavity-enhanced radiation pressure coupling between optical and mechanical degrees of freedom allows quantum-limited position measurements and gives rise to dynamical backaction enabling amplification and cooling of mechanical motion. Here we demonstrate purely dispersive coupling of high Q nanomechanical oscillators to an ultra-high finesse optical microresonator via its evanescent field, extending cavity optomechanics to nanomechanical oscillators. Dynamical backaction mediated by the optical dipole force is observed, leading to laser-like coherent nanomechanical oscillations solely due to radiation pressure. Moreover, sub-fm/Hz^(1/2) displacement sensitivity is achieved, with a measurement imprecision equal to the standard quantum limit (SQL), which coincides with the nanomechanical oscillators zero-point fluctuations. The achievement of an imprecision at the SQL and radiation-pressure dynamical backaction for nanomechanical oscillators may have implications not only for detecting quantum phenomena in mechanical systems, but also for a variety of other precision experiments. Owing to the flexibility of the near-field coupling approach, it can be readily extended to a diverse set of nanomechanical oscillators and particularly provides a route to experiments where radiation pressure quantum backaction dominates at room temperature, enabling ponderomotive squeezing or QND measurements.
The interaction between an atomic ensemble and a light mode in a high-finesse optical cavity can easily reach the strong-coupling regime, where quantum effects dominate. In this regime, the interaction can be used to generate both atom-light and atom-atom entanglement. We analyze the dominant effects on the collective atomic state and the light field, and derive a unified approach that can account for atomic entanglement induced both by measurements on the light field, and by ignoring the state of the light field altogether. We present analytical expressions for the entanglement induced by the interaction, and determine the conditions that maximize the entanglement-induced gain over the standard quantum limit in quantum sensors and atomic clocks.