No Arabic abstract
The Continuous Spontaneous Localization (CSL) model predicts a tiny break of energy conservation via a weak stochastic force acting on physical systems, which triggers the collapse of the wave function. Mechanical oscillators are a natural way to test such a force; in particular levitated micro-mechanical oscillator has been recently proposed to be an ideal system. We report a proof-of-principle experiment with a micro-oscillator generated by a micro-sphere diamagnetically levitated in a magneto-gravitational trap under high vacuum. Due to the ultra-low mechanical dissipation, the oscillator provides a new upper bound on the CSL collapse rate, which gives an improvement of two orders of magnitude over the previous bounds in the same frequency range, and partially reaches the enhanced collapse rate suggested by Adler. Although being performed at room temperature, our experiment has already exhibits advantages over those operating at low temperatures previously reported. Our results experimentally show the potential of magneto-gravitational levitated mechanical oscillator as a promising method for testing collapse model. Further improvements in cryogenic experiments are discussed.
We report quantum ground state cooling of a levitated nanoparticle in a room temperature environment. Using coherent scattering into an optical cavity we cool the center of mass motion of a $143$ nm diameter silica particle by more than $7$ orders of magnitude to $n_x=0.43pm0.03$ phonons along the cavity axis, corresponding to a temperature of $12~mu$K. We infer a heating rate of $Gamma_x/2pi = 21pm 3$ kHz, which results in a coherence time of $7.6~mu$s -- or $15$ coherent oscillations -- while the particle is optically trapped at a pressure of $10^{-6}$ mbar. The inferred optomechanical coupling rate of $g_x/2pi = 71$ kHz places the system well into the regime of strong cooperativity ($C approx 5$). We expect that a combination of ultra-high vacuum with free-fall dynamics will allow to further expand the spatio-temporal coherence of such nanoparticles by several orders of magnitude, thereby opening up new opportunities for macrosopic quantum experiments.
Ultralow dissipation plays an important role in sensing applications and exploring macroscopic quantum phenomena using micro-and nano-mechanical systems. We report a diamagnetic-levitated micro-mechanical oscillator operating at a low temperature of 3K with measured dissipation as low as 0.59 $mu$Hz and a quality factor as high as $2 times 10^7$. To the best of our knowledge the achieved dissipation is the lowest in micro- and nano-mechanical systems to date, orders of magnitude improvement over the reported state-of-the-art systems based on different principles. The cryogenic diamagnetic-levitated oscillator described here is applicable to a wide range of mass, making it a good candidate for measuring both force and acceleration with ultra-high sensitivity. By virtue of the naturally existing strong magnetic gradient, this system has great potential in quantum spin mechanics study.
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 homodyne and heterodyne measurements. We also compare the performances of such strategies with those of a spin-assisted optomechanical system, where the estimation of the CSL parameter is performed through time-gated spin-like measurements.
The value of residual phase noise, after phase compensation, is one of the key limitations of performance improvement for continuous-variable quantum key distribution using a local local oscillator (LLO CV-QKD) system, since it is the major excess noise. However, due to the non-ideality of the realistic devices implemented in practice, for example, imperfect lasers, detectors and unbalanced interferometers, the value of residual phase noise in current system is still relatively large. Here, we develop a phase noise model to improve the phase noise tolerance of the LLO CV-QKD schemes. In our model, part of the phase-reference measurement noise associated with detection efficiency and electronic noise of Bobs detector as well as a real-time monitored phasereference intensity at Bobs side is considered trusted because it can be locally calibrated by Bob. We show that using our phase noise model can significantly improve the secure key rate and transmission distance of the LLO CV-QKD system. We further conduct an experiment to substantiate the superiority of the phase noise model. Based on experimental data of a LLO CV-QKD system in the 25 km optical fiber channel, we demonstrate that the secure key rate under our phase noise model is approximately 40% higher than that under the conventional phase noise model.
When a gain system is coupled to a loss system, the energy usually flows from the gain system to the loss one. We here present a counterintuitive theory for the ground-state cooling of the mechanical resonator in optomechanical system via a gain cavity. The energy flows first from the mechanical resonator into the loss cavity, then into the gain cavity, and finally localizes there. The energy localization in the gain cavity dramatically enhances the cooling rate of the mechanical resonator. Moreover, we show that unconventional optical spring effect, e.g., giant frequency shift and optically induced damping of the mechanical resonator, can be realized. Those feature a pre-cooling free ground-state cooling, i.e., the mechanical resonator in thermal excitation at room temperature can directly be cooled to its ground state. This cooling approach has the potential application for fundamental tests of quantum physics without complicated cryogenic setups.