Engineering single-phonon number states of a mechanical oscillator via photon subtraction

TL;DR

This paper proposes a probabilistic method using photon subtraction in optomechanics to generate high-quality single-phonon states in mechanical oscillators, analyzing its feasibility with current technology.

Contribution

It introduces a novel photon-subtraction scheme for preparing single-phonon states in mechanical systems, with detailed analysis of state quality and experimental feasibility.

Findings

The scheme successfully produces single-phonon states with high fidelity.

Temperature and system parameters significantly affect state quality.

Feasibility is demonstrated with current optomechanical technology.

Abstract

We introduce an optomechanical scheme for the probabilistic preparation of single-phonon Fock states of mechanical modes based on photo-subtraction. The quality of the produced mechanical state is confirmed by a number of indicators, including phonon statistics and conditional fidelity. We assess the detrimental effect of parameters such as the temperature of the mechanical system and address the feasibility of the scheme with state-of-the-art technology.