Levitated nanoparticles are considered as a promising platform for testing collapse theories and probing the quantum-to-classical boundary. Recent cavity-based experiments suggest that cooling trapped nanoparticles to quantum ground states may be within reach [1]. As one looks to attain genuine nonclassicality using non-Gaussian states of levitated oscillators, there is one major roadblock ahead. Namely, sequential excitation due to equally spaced energy levels makes almost all excitation schemes result in Gaussian states. In this talk I will present a method based on the Kapitza-Dirac effect to blockade sequential excitation at a desired energy level [2], thus realizing non-Gaussian states for levitated harmonic oscillators. Experimental implementation with nanoparticles and large molecules will also be discussed.
[1] U. Delić, M. Reisenbauer, D. Grass, N. Kiesel, V. Vuletić, and M. Aspelmeyer, Cavity Cooling of a Levitated Nanosphere by Coherent Scattering, Phys. Rev. Lett. 122, 123602 (2019).
[2] W. C. Huang and H. Batelaan, Testing Quantum Coherence in Stochastic Electrodynamics with Squeezed Schrödinger Cat States, Atoms 7, 42 (2019).
Host: M. Aspelmeyer