Transient Quantum Optomechanics

本工作旨在通过辐射压力将光相干耦合到宏观机械振子，并探索光与机械振子在这种光力学系统中的量子纠缠。该项目的具体目标包括在其运动基态附近制备宏观机械振荡器，并通过双模压缩光力学过程将机械振荡器与光纠缠。实验工作将集中在瞬态而非稳态光力学相互作用的研究上，这将使纠缠操作在比机械退相干时间短的时间尺度上实现。该项目还将开发具有高机械质量因子、超高光学精细度以及强光-机耦合的光-机谐振器。一个特别的重点是实现一个良好的孤立的光力学系统，以探索宏观量子现象，否则经典力学系统。这项工作通过在科学和技术重要领域为研究生和本科生提供优秀的培训，为教育和人力资源做出了贡献。量子力学作为一门基础理论，描述了电子、原子和分子的微观世界，并预测了量子叠加和量子纠缠等奇怪或怪异的行为。这些量子行为的精细控制现在已经在各种微观系统中实现。然而，将量子力学应用于宏观世界中的经典物体或系统，会遇到概念和技术上的问题。本项目开发的光力学系统为我们研究宏观力学系统中的量子行为提供了一个特定的实验平台。在这样一个系统中，人们可以利用光与机械运动之间的相互作用，将机械运动控制到量子状态。将量子行为的研究和控制扩展到这个宏观系统，可以潜在地揭示量子世界和经典世界之间的界限，也可以对量子技术的发展产生重大影响，例如量子信息处理和精确或超灵敏测量。

This work aims to coherently couple light to a macroscopic mechanical oscillator via a radiation pressure force and to explore quantum entanglement between light and the mechanical oscillator in such an optomechanical system. Specific objectives of the project include preparing a macroscopic mechanical oscillator near its motional ground state and entangling the mechanical oscillator with light through a two-mode-squeezing optomechanical process. The experimental effort will focus on the study of transient, instead of steady-state, optomechanical interactions, which should enable entanglement operations in a timescale short compared with the mechanical decoherence time. The project will also develop optomechanical resonators that can feature high mechanical quality factor, ultrahigh optical finesse, as well as strong optomechanical coupling. A particular emphasis is to realize a well-isolated optomechanical system for exploring macroscopic quantum phenomena in an otherwise classical mechanical system. This work makes contributions to education and human resource by providing excellent training to graduate and undergraduate students in areas of both scientific and technological importance.Quantum mechanics, as a fundamental theory, describes the microscopic world of electrons, atoms and molecules and predicts strange or weird behaviors, such as quantum superposition and quantum entanglement. Exquisite control of these quantum behaviors has now been achieved in a variety of microscopic systems. Applying quantum mechanics to otherwise classical objects or systems in the macroscopic world, however, encounters both conceptual and technical issues. The optomechanical system developed in this project provides us a specific experimental platform for investigating quantum behaviors in a macroscopic mechanical system. In such a system, one can control the mechanical motion down to the quantum regime by exploiting the interaction between light and the mechanical motion. Extending the study and control of quantum behaviors to this macroscopic system can potentially shed light on the boundary between the quantum and classical worlds and can also have significant impact on the development of quantum technologies such as such as quantum information processing and precision or ultra-sensitive measurements.