No Arabic abstract
The speed meter concept has been identified as a technique that can potentially provide laser-interferometric measurements at a sensitivity level which surpasses the Standard Quantum Limit (SQL) over a broad frequency range. As with other sub-SQL measurement techniques, losses play a central role in speed meter interferometers and they ultimately determine the quantum noise limited sensitivity that can be achieved. So far in the literature, the quantum noise limited sensitivity has only been derived for lossless or lossy cases using certain approximations (for instance that the arm cavity round trip loss is small compared to the arm cavity mirror transmission). In this article we present a generalised, analytical treatment of losses in speed meters that allows accurate calculation of the quantum noise limited sensitivity of Sagnac speed meters with arm cavities. In addition, our analysis allows us to take into account potential imperfections in the interferometer such as an asymmetric beam splitter or differences of the reflectivities of the two arm cavity input mirrors. Finally,we use the examples of the proof-of-concept Sagnac speed meter currently under construction in Glasgow and a potential implementation of a Sagnac speed meter in the Einstein Telescope (ET) to illustrate how our findings affect Sagnac speed meters with meter- and kilometre-long baselines.
Quantum fluctuations in the radiation pressure of light can excite stochastic motions of mechanical oscillators thereby realizing a linear quantum opto-mechanical coupling. When performing a precise measurement of the position of an oscillator, this coupling results in quantum radiation pressure noise. Up to now this effect has not been observed yet. Generally speaking, the strength of radiation pressure noise increases when the effective mass of the oscillator is decreased or when the power of the reflected light is increased. Recently, extremely light SiN membranes with high mechanical Q-values at room temperature have attracted attention as low thermal noise mechanical oscillators. However, the power reflectance of these membranes is much lower than unity which makes the use of advanced interferometer recycling techniques to amplify the radiation pressure noise in a standard Michelson interferometer inefficient. Here, we propose and theoretically analyze a Michelson-Sagnac interferometer that includes the membrane as a common end mirror for the Michelson interferometer part. In this new topology, both, power- and signal-recycling can be used even if the reflectance of the membrane is much lower than unity. In particular, signal-recycling is a useful tool because it does not involve a power increase at the membrane. We derive the formulas for the quantum radiation pressure noise and the shot-noise of an oscillator position measurement and compare them with theoretical models of the thermal noise of a SiN membrane with a fundamental resonant frequency of 75 kHz and an effective mass of 125 ng. We find that quantum radiation pressure noise should be observable with a power of 1 W at the central beam splitter of the interferometer and a membrane temperature of 1 K.
We report on the generation of polarization squeezing of intense, short light pulses using an asymmetric fiber Sagnac interferometer. The Kerr nonlinearity of the fiber is exploited to produce independent amplitude squeezed pulses. The polarization squeezing properties of spatially overlapped amplitude squeezed and coherent states are discussed. The experimental results for a single amplitude squeezed beam are compared to the case of two phase-matched, spatially overlapped amplitude squeezed pulses. For the latter, noise variances of -3.4dB below shot noise in the S0 and the S1 and of -2.8dB in the S2 Stokes parameters were observed, which is comparable to the input squeezing magnitude. Polarization squeezing, that is squeezing relative to a corresponding polarization minimum uncertainty state, was generated in S1.
The recent discovery of gravitational waves (GW) by LIGO has impressively launched the novel field of gravitational astronomy and it allowed us to glimpse at exciting objects we could so far only speculate about. Further sensitivity improvements at the low frequency end of the detection band of future GW observatories rely on quantum non-demolition (QND) methods to suppress fundamental quantum fluctuations of the light fields used to readout the GW signal. Here we invent a novel concept of how to turn a conventional Michelson interferometer into a QND speed meter interferometer with coherently suppressed quantum back-action noise by using two orthogonal polarisations of light and an optical circulator to couple them. We carry out a detailed analysis of how imperfections and optical loss influence the achievable sensitivity and find that the configuration proposed here would significantly enhance the low frequency sensitivity and increase the observable event rate of binary black hole coalescences in the range of $10^2-10^3 M_odot$ by a factor of up to $sim300$.
Continuous-variable quantum key distribution exploits coherent measurements of the electromagnetic field, i.e., homodyne or heterodyne detection. The most advanced security analyses developed so far relied on idealised mathematical models for such measurements, which assume that the measurement outcomes are continuous and unbounded variables. As any physical measurement device has finite range and precision, these mathematical models only serve as an approximation. It is expected that, under suitable conditions, the predictions obtained using these simplified models are in good agreement with the actual experimental implementations. However, a quantitative analysis of the error introduced by this approximation, and of its impact on composable security, have been lacking so far. Here we present a theory to rigorously account for the experimental limitations of realistic heterodyne detection. We focus on asymptotic security against collective attacks, and indicate a route to include finite-size effects.
A Sagnac atom interferometer can be constructed using a Bose-Einstein condensate trapped in a cylindrically symmetric harmonic potential. Using the Bragg interaction with a set of laser beams, the atoms can be launched into circular orbits, with two counterpropagating interferometers allowing many sources of common-mode noise to be excluded. In a perfectly symmetric and harmonic potential, the interferometer output would depend only on the rotation rate of the apparatus. However, deviations from the ideal case can lead to spurious phase shifts. These phase shifts have been theoretically analyzed for anharmonic perturbations up to quartic in the confining potential, as well as angular deviations of the laser beams, timing deviations of the laser pulses, and motional excitations of the initial condensate. Analytical and numerical results show the leading effects of the perturbations to be second order. The scaling of the phase shifts with the number of orbits and the trap axial frequency ratio are determined. The results indicate that sensitive parameters should be controlled at the $10^{-5}$ level to accommodate a rotation sensing accuracy of $10^{-9}$ rad/s. The leading-order perturbations are suppressed in the case of perfect cylindrical symmetry, even in the presence of anharmonicity and other errors. An experimental measurement of one of the perturbation terms is presented.