Mechanical resonators for storage and transfer of electrical and optical quantum states

TL;DR

This paper investigates an optomechanical system where a mechanical resonator couples microwave and optical fields, demonstrating potential for high-fidelity quantum state storage and transfer despite mechanical decoherence.

Contribution

It introduces quantum state transfer protocols in optomechanical systems and analyzes their fidelity considering mechanical decoherence effects.

Findings

Mechanical decoherence does not prevent high-fidelity state transfer.

Quantum state-diffusion techniques effectively model transfer fidelity.

Protocols can overcome limitations of microwave and optical platforms.

Abstract

We study an optomechanical system in which a microwave field and an optical field are coupled to a common mechanical resonator. We explore methods that use these mechanical resonators to store quantum mechanical states and to transduce states between the electromagnetic resonators from the perspective of the effect of mechanical decoherence. Besides being of fundamental interest, this coherent quantum state transfer could have important practical implications in the field of quantum information science, as it potentially allows one to overcome intrinsic limitations of both microwave and optical platforms. We discuss several state transfer protocols and study their transfer fidelity using a fully quantum mechanical model that utilizes quantum state-diffusion techniques. This work demonstrates that mechanical decoherence should not be an insurmountable obstacle in realizing high fidelity storage and transduction.