A recent experimental breakthrough has propelled levitated optomechanics into the quantum domain [1]. The new coherent scattering (CS) setup has the capability to prepare highly non-classical states for nano-sized objects, opening the possibility to explore unprobed quantum mechanical regimes, e.g. the quantum-to-classical transition as well as the nature of the gravitational interaction [2]. We will first briefly review the main features of the CS setup and highlight some of its novel aspects such as the hybridization of the mechanical modes and the backaction effects [3]. We will then outline the possibilities for quantum sensing and for probing external background fields beyond non CS cavity optomechanics. We will conclude by a few remarks on possible applications such as testing gravitational effects in Quantum mechanics [4].
[1] Delić, U., Reisenbauer, M., Dare, K., Grass, D., Vuletić, V., Kiesel, N. and Aspelmeyer, M., 2019. Motional Quantum Ground State of a Levitated Nanoparticle from Room Temperature. arXiv preprint arXiv:1911.04406. [2] Bose, S., Mazumdar, A., Morley, G.W., Ulbricht, H., Toroš, M., Paternostro, M., Geraci, A.A., Barker, P.F., Kim, M.S. and Milburn, G., 2017. Spin entanglement witness for quantum gravity. Phys. Rev. Lett. 119(24), p.240401. [3] Toroš, M. and Monteiro, T.S., 2019. Quantum Limited displacement sensing in 3D cavity optomechanics. arXiv preprint arXiv:1909.09555. [4] Colella, R., Overhauser, A.W. and Werner, S.A., 1975. Observation of gravitationally induced quantum interference. Phys. Rev. Lett. 34(23), p.1472.
Host: M. Aspelmeyer