Probing the Limits of Quantum Mechanics

TYPECondensed Matter Seminar
Speaker:Itay Shomroni
Date:26.02.2020
Time:13:30 - 14:30
Location:Lidow Nathan Rosen (300)
Abstract:

Within the emerging field of Quantum Optomechanics, it has become possible in
recent years to establish a quantum interface between light and the motion of an

engineered mechanical oscillator, and to observe such effects as motional

sideband asymmetry, radiation pressure shot noise, and ponderomotive squeezing.

These achievements are now being extended towards applications and fundamental

research. The possibility to manipulate motion at the quantum level opens new

avenues such as sensing technologies with unprecedented sensitivities, encoding

quantum information in ultrahigh-quality nanomechanical systems, and engineering

macroscopic quantum states for testing of fundamental quantum physics. I will

describe my recent work with optomechanical photonic crystals, demonstrating

quantum measurement techniques that evade quantum backaction noise [1,2] and

enable sensing of force and displacement beyond the standard quantum limit. I will

also report on laser cooling of macrosopic mechanical motion down to a record level

of 92% ground state occupation [4]. I will show how to extend these results with

related methods to generate mechanical squeezed states. Finally, I will describe my

recent theoretical proposal for generating superposition (cat) states in a macroscopic

oscillator [5], that directly builds upon these techniques.


Refs:
[1] Shomroni et al., Phys. Rev. X 9, 041022 (2019)

[2] Shomroni et al., Nat. Commun. 10, 2086 (2019)

[3] Qiu*, Shomroni* et al., Phys. Rev. A 100, 053852 (2019)

[4] Qiu*, Shomroni* et al., arXiv:1903.10242

[5] Shomroni et al., arXiv:1909.10624 (to appear in PRA)