Route to chaos in optomechanics

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates the emergence of chaos in optomechanical systems at negative detuning, explores the transition sequence to chaos, and investigates how quantum effects suppress chaos, revealing the quantum-classical crossover.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed analysis of chaos in optomechanics, including the transition process and quantum suppression effects, with experimentally observable signatures.

Findings

Chaos appears at negative detuning in optomechanical systems.

Quantum mechanics suppresses classical chaos, restoring periodic orbits.

Signatures of chaos can be observed in the optical spectrum.

Abstract

We establish the emergence of chaotic motion in optomechanical systems. Chaos appears at negative detuning for experimentally accessible values of the pump power and other system parameters. We describe the sequence of period doubling bifurcations that leads to chaos, and state the experimentally observable signatures in the optical spectrum. In addition to the semi-classical dynamics we analyze the possibility of chaotic motion in the quantum regime. We find that quantum mechanics protects the optomechanical system against irregular dynamics, such that simple periodic orbits reappear and replace the classically chaotic motion. In this way observation of the dynamical signatures makes it possible to pin down the crossover from quantum to classical mechanics.