Quantum optomechanical systems

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• Prof. Andrew Armour, U of Nottingham
• Thursday 19 May 2011, 13:45-15:00
• Theory Library.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Dr Dimitri M Gangardt.

When one of the mirrors in an optical cavity is mounted on a mechanical oscillator the radiation pressure force can cause a deflection which acts back on the cavity by changing its optical frequency. When the cavity is driven by a laser this parametric coupling between the mechanical and optical degrees of freedom leads to an interesting range of effects. When the cavity is driven below resonance, quanta are absorbed from the resonator by the cavity and the low level of photon noise in the cavity means that the mechanical resonator can in principle be cooled almost all the way to its ground state, as has indeed been demonstrated in recent experiments. However, when the cavity is instead driven above resonance energy is absorbed by the resonator. In this regime the dynamics is much more complicated: the resonator can undergo dynamical transitions to states of self-sustaining oscillation. Interestingly, the amplitude fluctuations in the resulting oscillating states are suppressed in the sense that they can be substantially less than in a corresponding state produced by simply applying a pure harmonic drive, the counterpart of the cooling that occurs in the stable regime.

This talk is part of the Theoretical Physics Seminars series.

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