EAGER: Fluctuations and dissipation in nonlinear mesoscopic vibrational systems

非技术摘要今天的技术允许制造尺寸在纳米量级的器件，用于各种应用，例如光调制和芯片实验室中的质量测量。这些纳米机电系统的功能，或称NEMS，目前可以用牛顿最先发展的经典力学定律很好地理解。然而，随着设备尺寸的不断缩小，将会出现控制其行为的新影响。对于非常小的设备，牛顿定律不再有效，更神秘和违反直觉的量子力学定律将支配这种行为。此外，器件中的波动和非线性将变得更加重要。当波动和非线性行为变得重要时，这种渴望将一位实验和理论物理学家聚集在一起，开发新的分析工具和实验方法，以了解、预测和控制NEMS。这将具有重要的实际意义，因为这些设备用于质量、电荷和力的测量、精确的频率源和电光调制器。参与该项目的研究生将学习最先进的实验和理论技术，并将在实验和理论合作中获得宝贵的工作经验。技术摘要NEMS是研究远离平衡的量子和经典涨落的最佳平台，包括状态间开关和光机冷却和加热现象。然而，关于这些系统中波动的起源和耗散机制，以及涨落、耗散和非线性的相互作用，仍然存在重大问题。传统的开放量子理论和经典系统理论是不够的，因为它们不能充分描述实质上的非线性振动和非高斯涨落的影响。这笔赠款支持的研究将开发分离和识别本征频率波动并研究其统计和频谱的理论和实验手段。反过来，这将使建立它们的微观机制成为可能。在更广泛的背景下，所提出的研究为利用强周期场驱动的非线性NEMS来理解远离热平衡的经典和量子涨落的一般特征铺平了道路。

Non-technical abstract Today's technology allows the fabrication of devices with sizes on the order of nanometers that are used in a variety of applications such as light modulation and mass measurements in labs-on-a-chip. The functioning of these nano electro-mechanical systems, or NEMS, can currently be fairly well understood using the laws of classical mechanics first developed by Newton. However, as the device size continues to shrink new effects will emerge that govern their behavior. For very small devices Newton's laws are no longer valid and the more mysterious and counterintuitive laws of quantum mechanics will govern the behavior. In addition, fluctuations and non-linearity's in the device will become more important. This EAGER brings together an experimental and theoretical physicist to develop new analytical tools and experimental methods to understand, predict and control NEMS when fluctuations and non-linear behavior become important. This will have important practical consequences as these devices are used for mass, charge and force measurements, accurate frequency sources and electro-optic modulators. Graduate students involved in this project will learn state of the art experimental and theoretical techniques and will gain valuable experience working in an experimental-theoretical collaboration.Technical abstract NEMS are the best characterized platform for studies of quantum and classical fluctuations far from equilibrium, including such phenomena as interstate switching and optomechanical cooling and heating. However, there remain major questions concerning the very origin of the fluctuations and the mechanisms of dissipation in these systems, as well as the interplay of fluctuations, dissipation, and nonlinearity. Conventional theories of open quantum and classical systems are insufficient, as they do not adequately describe substantially nonlinear vibrations and the effects of non-Gaussian fluctuations. The research supported by this grant will develop theoretical and experimental means for separating and identifying eigenfrequency fluctuations and studying their statistics and spectra. In turn, this will make it possible to establish their microscopic mechanism. In a broader context, the proposed studies pave the way to understanding general features of classical and quantum fluctuations away from thermal equilibrium using nonlinear NEMS driven by strong periodic fields.