Quantum Feedback Cooling of a Mechanical Oscillator Using Variational Measurements:Tweaking Heisenberg's Microscope

TL;DR

This paper explores a feedback cooling method for mechanical oscillators near their quantum ground state using variational measurements to optimize the balance between measurement precision and disturbance, enhancing quantum control.

Contribution

It introduces a variational measurement approach that adapts the local oscillator phase to improve feedback cooling efficiency in quantum optomechanics.

Findings

Achieved large quantum cooperativity $C_q \,\gtrsim 1$ in experiments.

Demonstrated improved cooling performance with variational measurement.

Provided a practical method to push quantum limits in optomechanical systems.

Abstract

We revisit the problem of preparing a mechanical oscillator in the vicinity of its quantum-mechanical ground state by means of feedback cooling based on continuous optical detection of the oscillator position. In the parameter regime relevant to ground state cooling, the optical back-action and imprecision noise set the bottleneck of achievable cooling and must be carefully balanced. This can be achieved by adapting the phase of the local oscillator in the homodyne detection realizing a so-called variational measurement. The trade-off between accurate position measurement and minimal disturbance can be understood in terms of Heisenberg's microscope and becomes particularly relevant when the measurement and feedback processes happen to be fast within the quantum coherence time of the system to be cooled. This corresponds to the regime of large quantum cooperativity $C_{\text{q}}\gtrsim1$, which was achieved in recent experiments on feedback cooling. Our method provides a simple path to further pushing the limits of current state-of-the-art experiments in quantum optomechanics.