Resolving the vacuum fluctuations of an optomechanical system using an artificial atom

Vacuum fluctuations in a ground-state mechanical oscillator are hard to distinguish from noise, but by using the coupling with a superconducting qubit in a microwave cavity one can amplify and convert them to directly measurable real photons. Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle results in one of the...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Nature physics 2015-08, Vol.11 (8), p.635-639
Main Authors: Lecocq, F., Teufel, J. D., Aumentado, J., Simmonds, R. W.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
142/126
639/766/483/1139
639/766/483/481
Atomic
Classical and Continuum Physics
Complex Systems
Condensed Matter Physics
Detectors
Energy
Fluctuation
Fluctuations
Ground state
letter
Mathematical and Computational Physics
Mechanical oscillators
Molecular
Monitors
Optical and Plasma Physics
Oscillators
Photons
Physics
Quantum theory
Qubits (quantum computing)
Theoretical
Vacuum technology
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Summary:Vacuum fluctuations in a ground-state mechanical oscillator are hard to distinguish from noise, but by using the coupling with a superconducting qubit in a microwave cavity one can amplify and convert them to directly measurable real photons. Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle results in one of the strangest quantum behaviours: a mechanical oscillator can never truly be at rest. Even at a temperature of absolute zero, its position and momentum are still subject to quantum fluctuations 1 , 2 . However, direct energy detection of the oscillator in its ground state makes it seem motionless 1 , 3 , and in linear position measurements detector noise can masquerade as mechanical fluctuations 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 . Thus, how can we resolve quantum fluctuations? Here, we parametrically couple a micromechanical oscillator to a microwave cavity to prepare the system in its quantum ground state 8 , 9 and then amplify the remaining vacuum fluctuations into real energy quanta 10 . We monitor the photon/phonon-number distributions using a superconducting qubit 11 , 12 , 13 , allowing us to resolve the quantum vacuum fluctuations of the macroscopic oscillator’s motion. Our results further demonstrate the ability to control a long-lived mechanical oscillator using a non-Gaussian resource, directly enabling applications in quantum information processing and enhanced detection of displacement and forces.
ISSN:1745-2473
1745-2481
DOI:10.1038/nphys3365