Heralded Control of Mechanical motion by Single Spins

TL;DR

This paper presents a novel method to control nanomechanical oscillators by coupling them to single spins, enabling cooling and squeezing through spin manipulation and measurement, even under weak coupling conditions.

Contribution

It introduces a heralded control scheme using spin states to achieve mechanical cooling and squeezing, applicable at high temperatures and damping rates.

Findings

Effective spin-based cooling and squeezing demonstrated

Robust control at high initial temperatures

Analytical model linking spin states to oscillator behavior

Abstract

We propose a method to achieve high degree control of nanomechanical oscillators by coupling their mechanical motion to single spins. By manipulating the spin alone and measuring its quantum state heralds the cooling or squeezing of the oscillator even for weak spin-oscillator couplings. We analytically show that the asymptotic behavior of the oscillator is determined by a spin-induced thermal filter function whose overlap with the initial thermal distribution of the oscillator determines its cooling, heating or squeezing. Counterintuitively, the rate of cooling dependence on the instantaneous thermal occupancy of the oscillator renders robust cooling or squeezing even for high initial temperatures and damping rates. We further estimate how the proposed scheme can be used to control the motion of a thin diamond cantilever by coupling it to its defect centers at low temperature.