Tunable Cavity Optomechanics with Ultracold Atoms

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates a tunable cavity optomechanics system using ultracold atoms on an atom chip, allowing precise control of coupling parameters and exploring nonlinear optical effects and frequency shifts in the quadratic-coupling regime.

Contribution

It introduces a novel atom-chip-based platform for quantum cavity optomechanics with tunable coupling and characterizes nonlinear and frequency shift effects in the quadratic regime.

Findings

Tunable linear and quadratic optomechanical coupling achieved.

Observation of cavity optical nonlinearity effects.

First characterization of frequency shifts in quadratic coupling regime.

Abstract

We present an atom-chip-based realization of quantum cavity optomechanics with cold atoms localized within a Fabry-Perot cavity. Effective sub-wavelength positioning of the atomic ensemble allows for tuning the linear and quadratic optomechanical coupling parameters, varying the sensitivity to the displacement and strain of a compressible gaseous cantilever. We observe effects of such tuning on cavity optical nonlinearity and optomechanical frequency shifts, providing their first characterization in the quadratic-coupling regime.