To make a nanomechanical Schr\"{o}dinger-cat mew

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the output intensities of a proposed optomechanical scheme to detect quantum superpositions in nanomechanical oscillators, identifying issues with visibility and proposing phase shifter solutions to enhance quantum state detection.

Contribution

It introduces a phase shifter modification to the original scheme, improving the ability to observe and reconstruct quantum states of nanomechanical systems.

Findings

Oscillatory factors can reduce visibility to zero at revival times.

Proper phase shifter tuning can mitigate visibility issues.

Fast time-dependent phase modulation enhances quantum state detection.

Abstract

By an explicite calculation of Michelson interferometric output intensities in the optomechanical scheme proposed by Marshall et al. (2003), an oscillatory factor is obtained that may go down to zero just at the time a visibility revival ought to be observed. Including a properly tuned phase shifter offers a simple amendment to the situation. By using a Pockels phase shifter with fast time-dependent modulation in one arm, one may obtain further possibilities to enrich the quantum state preparation and reconstruction abilities of the original scheme, thereby improving the chances to reliably detect genuine quantum behaviour of a nanomechanical oscillator.