Optomechanical cooling in the non-Markovian regime

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that non-Markovian environments can enhance optomechanical cooling of a mechanical resonator beyond traditional limits by leveraging environment backflow and memory effects.

Contribution

It introduces a novel cooling scheme utilizing non-Markovian environments, showing improved phonon reduction compared to Markovian-based methods.

Findings

Cooling surpasses Markovian limits due to environment backflow

Non-Markovian memory effects are crucial for effective cooling

Experimental spectrum density supports theoretical predictions

Abstract

We propose a scheme in which the cooling of a mechanical resonator is achieved by exposing the optomechanical system to a non-Markovian environment. Because of the backflow from the non-Markovian environment, the phonon number can go beyond the conventional cooling limit in a Markovian environment. Utilizing the spectrum density obtained in the recent experiment [Nature Communications 6, 7606 (2015)], we show that the cooling process is highly effective in a non-Markovian environment. The analysis of the cooling mechanism in a non-Markovian environment reveals that the non-Markovian memory effect is instrumental to the cooling process.