Stationary optomechanical entanglement between a mechanical oscillator and its measurement apparatus

authored by
C. Gut, K. Winkler, J. Hoelscher-Obermaier, S. G. Hofer, R. Moghadas Nia, N. Walk, A. Steffens, J. Eisert, W. Wieczorek, J. A. Slater, M. Aspelmeyer, K. Hammerer
Abstract

We provide an argument to infer stationary entanglement between light and a mechanical oscillator based on continuous measurement of light only. We propose an experimentally realizable scheme involving an optomechanical cavity driven by a resonant, continuous-wave field operating in the non-sideband-resolved regime. This corresponds to the conventional configuration of an optomechanical position or force sensor. We show analytically that entanglement between the mechanical oscillator and the output field of the optomechanical cavity can be inferred from the measurement of squeezing in (generalized) Einstein-Podolski-Rosen quadratures of suitable temporal modes of the stationary light field. Squeezing can reach levels of up to 50% of noise reduction below shot noise in the limit of large quantum cooperativity. Remarkably, entanglement persists even in the opposite limit of small cooperativity. Viewing the optomechanical device as a position sensor, entanglement between mechanics and light is an instance of object-apparatus entanglement predicted by quantum measurement theory.

Organisation(s)
Institute of Theoretical Physics
QuantumFrontiers
CRC 1227 Designed Quantum States of Matter (DQ-mat)
External Organisation(s)
University of Vienna
Freie Universität Berlin (FU Berlin)
Austrian Academy of Sciences
Type
Article
Journal
Phys. Rev. Research
Volume
2
Publication date
12.08.2020
Publication status
Published
Peer reviewed
Yes
ASJC Scopus subject areas
Physics and Astronomy(all)
Electronic version(s)
https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevresearch.2.033244 (Access: Open)