arXiv subjects

F. Marquardt

Publications and source records attributed to F. Marquardt.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2023

Roadmap on structured waves

Structured waves are ubiquitous for all areas of wave physics, both classical and quantum, where the wavefields are inhomogeneous and cannot be approximated by a single plane wave. Even the interference of two plane waves, or a single inhomogeneous (evanescent) wave, provides a number of nontrivial phenomena and additional functionalities as compared to a single plane wave. Complex wavefields with inhomogeneities in the amplitude, phase, and polarization, including topological structures and singularities, underpin modern nanooptics and photonics, yet they are equally important, e.g., for quantum matter waves, acoustics, water waves, etc. Structured waves are crucial in optical and electron microscopy, wave propagation and scattering, imaging, communications, quantum optics, topological and non-Hermitian wave systems, quantum condensed-matter systems, optomechanics, plasmonics and metamaterials, optical and acoustic manipulation, and so forth. This Roadmap is written collectively by prominent researchers and aims to survey the role of structured waves in various areas of wave physics. Providing background, current research, and anticipating future developments, it will be of interest to a wide cross-disciplinary audience.

physics.optics↗

arXiv2017

Cavity Optomechanics in a Levitated Helium Drop

We describe a proposal for a new type of optomechanical system based on a drop of liquid helium that is magnetically levitated in vacuum. In the proposed device, the drop would serve three roles: its optical whispering gallery modes would provide the optical cavity, its surface vibrations would constitute the mechanical element, and evaporation of He atoms from its surface would provide continuous refrigeration. We analyze the feasibility of such a system in light of previous experimental demonstrations of its essential components: magnetic levitation of mm-scale and cm-scale drops of liquid He, evaporative cooling of He droplets in vacuum, and coupling to high-quality optical whispering gallery modes in a wide range of liquids. We find that the combination of these features could result in a device that approaches the single-photon strong coupling regime, due to the high optical quality factors attainable at low temperatures. Moreover, the system offers a unique opportunity to use optical techniques to study the motion of a superfluid that is freely levitating in vacuum (in the case of $^{4}\mathrm {He}$). Alternatively, for a normal fluid drop of $^3 \mathrm{He}$, we propose to exploit the coupling between the drop's rotations and vibrations to perform quantum non-demolition measurements of angular momentum.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2016

Quantum nondemolition measurement of mechanical squeezed state beyond the 3 dB limit

We use a reservoir engineering technique based on two-tone driving to generate and stabilize a quantum squeezed state of a micron-scale mechanical oscillator in a microwave optomechanical system. Using an independent backaction evading measurement to directly quantify the squeezing, we observe $4.7\pm0.9$ dB of squeezing below the zero-point level, surpassing the 3 dB limit of standard parametric squeezing techniques. Our measurements also reveal evidence for an additional mechanical parametric effect. The interplay between this effect and the optomechanical interaction enhances the amount of squeezing obtained in the experiment.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2015

Topological Phases of Sound and Light

Topological states of matter are particularly robust, since they exploit global features insensitive to local perturbations. In this work, we describe how to create a Chern insulator of phonons in the solid state. The proposed implementation is based on a simple setting, a dielectric slab with a suitable pattern of holes. Its topological properties can be wholly tuned in-situ by adjusting the amplitude and frequency of a driving laser that controls the optomechanical interaction between light and sound. The resulting chiral, topologically protected phonon transport along the edges can be probed completely optically. Moreover, we identify a regime of strong mixing between photon and phonon excitations, which gives rise to a large set of different topological phases. This would be an example of a Chern insulator produced from the interaction between two physically very different particle species, photons and phonons.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2015

Quantum squeezing of motion in a mechanical resonator

As a result of the quantum, wave-like nature of the physical world, a harmonic oscillator can never be completely at rest. Even in the quantum ground state, its position will always have fluctuations, called the zero-point motion. Although the zero-point fluctuations are unavoidable, they can be manipulated. In this work, using microwave frequency radiation pressure, we both prepare a micron-scale mechanical system in a state near the quantum ground state and then manipulate its thermal fluctuations to produce a stationary, quadrature-squeezed state. We deduce that the variance of one motional quadrature is 0.80 times the zero-point level, or 1 dB of sub-zero-point squeezing. This work is relevant to the quantum engineering of states of matter at large length scales, the study of decoherence of large quantum systems, and for the realization of ultra-sensitive sensing of force and motion.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2015

Optomechanical position detection enhanced by de-amplification using intracavity squeezing

It has been predicted and experimentally demonstrated that by injecting squeezed light into an optomechanical device it is possible to enhance the precision of a position measurement. Here, we present a fundamentally different approach where the squeezing is created directly inside the cavity by a nonlinear medium. Counterintuitively, the enhancement of the signal to noise ratio works by de-amplifying precisely the quadrature that is sensitive to the mechanical motion without losing quantum information. This enhancement works for systems with a weak optomechanical coupling and/or strong mechanical damping. This could allow for larger mechanical bandwidth of quantum limited detectors based on optomechanical devices. Our approach can be straightforwardly extended to Quantum Non Demolition (QND) qubit detection.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2015

Optomechanical creation of magnetic fields for photons on a lattice

We propose using the optomechanical interaction to create artificial magnetic fields for photons on a lattice. The ingredients required are an optomechanical crystal, i.e. a piece of dielectric with the right pattern of holes, and two laser beams with the right pattern of phases. One of the two proposed schemes is based on optomechanical modulation of the links between optical modes, while the other is an lattice extension of optomechanical wavelength-conversion setups. We illustrate the resulting optical spectrum, photon transport in the presence of an artificial Lorentz force, edge states, and the photonic Aharonov-Bohm effect. Moreover, wWe also briefly describe the gauge fields acting on the synthetic dimension related to the phonon/photon degree of freedom. These can be generated using a single laser beam impinging on an optomechanical array.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2014

Optomechanical Dirac Physics

Recent progress in optomechanical systems may soon allow the realization of optomechanical arrays, i.e. periodic arrangements of interacting optical and vibrational modes. We show that photons and phonons on a honeycomb lattice will produce an optically tunable Dirac-type band structure. Transport in such a system can exhibit transmission through an optically created barrier, similar to Klein tunneling, but with interconversion between light and sound. In addition, edge states at the sample boundaries are dispersive and enable controlled propagation of photon-phonon polaritons.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2010

Dimensional Crossover of the Dephasing Time in Disordered Mesoscopic Rings: From Diffusive through Ergodic to 0D Behavior

We analyze dephasing by electron interactions in a small disordered quasi-one dimensional (1D) ring weakly coupled to leads, where we recently predicted a crossover for the dephasing time $\tPh(T)$ from diffusive or ergodic 1D ($\tPh^{-1} \propto T^{2/3}, T^{1}$) to $0D$ behavior ($\tPh^{-1} \propto T^{2}$) as $T$ drops below the Thouless energy $\ETh$. We provide a detailed derivation of our results, based on an influence functional for quantum Nyquist noise, and calculate all leading and subleading terms of the dephasing time in the three regimes. Explicitly taking into account the Pauli blocking of the Fermi sea in the metal allows us to describe the $0D$ regime on equal footing as the others. The crossover to $0D$, predicted by Sivan, Imry and Aronov for 3D systems, has so far eluded experimental observation. We will show that for $T \ll \ETh$, $0D$ dephasing governs not only the $T$-dependence for the smooth part of the magnetoconductivity but also for the amplitude of the Altshuler-Aronov-Spivak oscillations, which result only from electron paths winding around the ring. This observation can be exploited to filter out and eliminate contributions to dephasing from trajectories which do not wind around the ring, which may tend to mask the $T^{2}$ behavior. Thus, the ring geometry holds promise of finally observing the crossover to $0D$ experimentally.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2010

Toolbox of resonant quantum gates in Circuit QED

We propose the implementation of fast resonant gates in circuit quantum electrodynamics for quantum information processing. We show how a suitable utilization of three-level superconducting qubits inside a resonator constitutes a key tool to perform diverse two-qubit resonant gates, improving the operation speed when compared to slower dispersive techniques. To illustrate the benefit of resonant two-qubit gates in circuit QED, we consider the implementation of a two-dimensional cluster state in an array of N x N superconducting qubits by using resonant controlled-phase (CPHASE) and one-qubit gates, where the generation time grows linearly with N. For N=3, and taking into account decoherence mechanisms, a fidelity over 60% for the generation of this cluster state is obtained.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2010

Introduction to Quantum Noise, Measurement and Amplification

The topic of quantum noise has become extremely timely due to the rise of quantum information physics and the resulting interchange of ideas between the condensed matter and AMO/quantum optics communities. This review gives a pedagogical introduction to the physics of quantum noise and its connections to quantum measurement and quantum amplification. After introducing quantum noise spectra and methods for their detection, we describe the basics of weak continuous measurements. Particular attention is given to treating the standard quantum limit on linear amplifiers and position detectors using a general linear-response framework. We show how this approach relates to the standard Haus-Caves quantum limit for a bosonic amplifier known in quantum optics, and illustrate its application for the case of electrical circuits, including mesoscopic detectors and resonant cavity detectors.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2010

Optimal control of circuit quantum electrodynamics in one and two dimensions

Optimal control can be used to significantly improve multi-qubit gates in quantum information processing hardware architectures based on superconducting circuit quantum electrodynamics. We apply this approach not only to dispersive gates of two qubits inside a cavity, but, more generally, to architectures based on two-dimensional arrays of cavities and qubits. For high-fidelity gate operations, simultaneous evolutions of controls and couplings in the two coupling dimensions of cavity grids are shown to be significantly faster than conventional sequential implementations. Even under experimentally realistic conditions speedups by a factor of three can be gained. The methods immediately scale to large grids and indirect gates between arbitrary pairs of qubits on the grid. They are anticipated to be paradigmatic for 2D arrays and lattices of controllable qubits.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2009

Single-Atom Cavity QED and Opto-Micromechanics

In a recent publication [K. Hammerer et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 063005 (2009)] we have shown the possibility to achieve strong coupling of the quantized motion of a micron-sized mechanical system to the motion of a single trapped atom. In the proposed setup the coherent coupling between a SiN membrane and a single atom is mediated by the field of a high finesse cavity, and can be much larger than the relevant decoherence rates. This makes the well-developed tools of CQED (cavity quantum electrodynamics) with single atoms available in the realm of cavity optomechanics. In this paper we elaborate on this scheme and provide detailed derivations and technical comments. Moreover, we give numerical as well as analytical results for a number of possible applications for transfer of squeezed or Fock states from atom to membrane as well as entanglement generation, taking full account of dissipation. In the limit of strong-coupling the preparation and verification of non-classical states of a mesoscopic mechanical system is within reach.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2009

Dimensional Crossover of the Dephasing Time in Disordered Mesoscopic Rings

We study dephasing by electron interactions in a small disordered quasi-one dimensional (1D) ring weakly coupled to leads. We use an influence functional for quantum Nyquist noise to describe the crossover for the dephasing time $\Tph (T)$ from diffusive or ergodic 1D ($ \Tph^{-1} \propto T^{2/3}, T^{1}$) to 0D behavior ($\Tph^{-1} \propto T^{2}$) as $T$ drops below the Thouless energy. The crossover to 0D, predicted earlier for 2D and 3D systems, has so far eluded experimental observation. The ring geometry holds promise of meeting this longstanding challenge, since the crossover manifests itself not only in the smooth part of the magnetoconductivity but also in the amplitude of Altshuler-Aronov-Spivak oscillations. This allows signatures of dephasing in the ring to be cleanly extracted by filtering out those of the leads.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2009

Strong coupling of a mechanical oscillator and a single atom

We propose and analyze a setup to achieve strong coupling between a single trapped atom and a mechanical oscillator. The interaction between the motion of the atom and the mechanical oscillator is mediated by a quantized light field in a laser driven high-finesse cavity. In particular, we show that high fidelity transfer of quantum states between the atom and the mechanical oscillator is in reach for existing or near future experimental parameters. Our setup provides the basic toolbox for coherent manipulation, preparation and measurement of micro- and nanomechanical oscillators via the tools of atomic physics.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2008

Dispersive optomechanics: a membrane inside a cavity

We present the results of theoretical and experimental studies of dispersively coupled (or "membrane in the middle") optomechanical systems. We calculate the linear optical properties of a high finesse cavity containing a thin dielectric membrane. We focus on the cavity's transmission, reflection, and finesse as a function of the membrane's position along the cavity axis and as a function of its optical loss. We compare these calculations with measurements and find excellent agreement in cavities with empty-cavity finesses in the range 10^4 to 10^5. The imaginary part of the membrane's index of refraction is found to be approximately 10^(-4). We calculate the laser cooling performance of this system, with a particular focus on the less-intuitive regime in which photons "tunnel" through the membrane on a time scale comparable to the membrane's period of oscillation. Lastly, we present calculations of quantum non-demolition measurements of the membrane's phonon number in the low signal-to-noise regime where the phonon lifetime is comparable to the QND readout time.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2008

Back-action evasion and squeezing of a mechanical resonator using a cavity detector

We study the quantum measurement of a cantilever using a parametrically-coupled electromagnetic cavity which is driven at the two sidebands corresponding to the mechanical motion. This scheme, originally due to Braginsky et al. [V. Braginsky, Y. I. Vorontsov, and K. P. Thorne, Science 209, 547 (1980)], allows a back-action free measurement of one quadrature of the cantilever's motion, and hence the possibility of generating a squeezed state. We present a complete quantum theory of this system, and derive simple conditions on when the quantum limit on the added noise can be surpassed. We also study the conditional dynamics of the measurement, and discuss how such a scheme (when coupled with feedback) can be used to generate and detect squeezed states of the oscillator. Our results are relevant to experiments in optomechanics, and to experiments in quantum electromechanics employing stripline resonators coupled to mechanical resonators.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2007

Mesoscopic Spin-Boson Models of Trapped Ions

Trapped ions arranged in Coulomb crystals provide us with the elements to study the physics of a single spin coupled to a boson bath. In this work we show that optical forces allow us to realize a variety of spin-boson models, depending on the crystal geometry and the laser configuration. We study in detail the Ohmic case, which can be implemented by illuminating a single ion with a travelling wave. The mesoscopic character of the phonon bath in trapped ions induces new effects like the appearance of quantum revivals in the spin evolution.

quant-ph↗