Optomechanical approach to controlling the temperature and chemical potential of light

Massless particles, including photons, are not governed by particle conservation law during their typical interaction with matter even at low energies, and thus have no chemical potential. However, in driven systems, near equilibrium dynamics can lead to equilibration of photons with a finite number...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:arXiv.org 2018-05
Main Authors: Wang, Chiao-Hsuan, Taylor, Jacob M
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Chemical potential
Cooling effects
Coupled modes
Laser cooling
Mechanical systems
Organic chemistry
Photonics
Photons
Simulation
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:Massless particles, including photons, are not governed by particle conservation law during their typical interaction with matter even at low energies, and thus have no chemical potential. However, in driven systems, near equilibrium dynamics can lead to equilibration of photons with a finite number, describable using an effective chemical potential [M. Hafezi et al., Phys. Rev. B 92, 174305 (2015)]. Here we build upon this general concept with an implementation appropriate for a photon-based quantum simulator. We consider how laser cooling of a well-isolated mechanical mode can provide an effective low-frequency bath for the quantum simulator system. We show that the use of auxiliary photon modes, coupled by the mechanical system, enables control of both the chemical potential and temperature of the resulting photonic quantum simulator's grand canonical ensemble.
ISSN:2331-8422
DOI:10.48550/arxiv.1706.00789