Proposal to test quantum wave-particle superposition on massive mechanical resonators

Abstract

We present and analyze a proposal for a macroscopic quantum delayed-choice experiment with massive mechanical resonators. In our approach, the electronic spin of a single nitrogen-vacancy impurity is employed to control the coherent coupling between the mechanical modes of two carbon nanotubes. We demonstrate that a mechanical phonon can be in a coherent superposition of wave and particle, thus exhibiting both behaviors at the same time. We also discuss the mechanical noise tolerable in our proposal and predict a critical temperature below which the morphing between wave and particle states can be effectively observed in the presence of environment-induced fluctuations. Furthermore, we describe how to amplify single-phonon excitations of the mechanical-resonator superposition states to a macroscopic level, via squeezing the mechanical modes. This approach corresponds to the phase-covariant cloning. Therefore, our proposal can serve as a test of macroscopic quantum superpositions of massive objects even with large excitations. This work, which describes a fundamental test of the limits of quantum mechanics at the macroscopic scale, would have implications for quantum metrology and quantum information processing.

Generation of Strong Mechanical–Mechanical Entanglement by Pump Modulation

“…We define the quadrature operators and . If the mechanical damping is dropped and the mechanical oscillator is prepared in the ground state initially, the evolution operator corresponding to Equation (18) is a squeezed operator [ 68 ] and the hybrid mode will present the exponential squeezing dynamics at time varying, that is, .…”

Weak-force sensing with squeezed optomechanics

“…to generate intracavity squeezing include, e.g., Kerr media [62][63][64] or dissipative COM devices [65][66][67]. We also note that by using mechanical squeezing [68][69][70][71], the sensitivity of detecting small displacements was improved by a factor of up to 7 [70].…”

Multimode Interference Induced Optical Routing in an Optical Microcavity

“…[ 14–19 ] Early studies are restricted to basic optomechanical models with one optical mode and one mechanical mode, models with multimode interaction, which couples multiple optical modes to a mechanical mode, exhibit richer physics phenomena such as optomechanical induced transparency (OMIT) [ 20–27 ] and absorption (OMIA) [ 28,29 ] and shows enormous potential in applications ranging from quantum information processing, [ 30–39 ] state transfers [ 40–42 ] to optomechanically induced non‐reciprocity. [ 43–51 ]…”

“…[14][15][16][17][18][19] Early studies are restricted to basic optomechanical models with one optical mode and one mechanical mode, models with multimode interaction, which couples multiple optical modes to a mechanical mode, exhibit richer physics DOI: 10.1002/andp.202000506 phenomena such as optomechanical induced transparency (OMIT) [20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27] and absorption (OMIA) [28,29] and shows enormous potential in applications ranging from quantum information processing, [30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39] state transfers [40][41][42] to optomechanically induced nonreciprocity. [43][44][45][46][47][48][49][50][51] Optical router is a key element for controlling the path of signal flow in quantum and classical network. Recently, quantum router has been proposed in various systems, that is, cavity atom, [52][53][54][55][56][57][...…”