Optomechanical dual-beam backaction-evading measurement beyond the rotating-wave approximation

TL;DR

This paper provides an exact analytical solution for a dual-beam backaction-evading measurement of a mechanical oscillator, revealing effects of counterrotating terms beyond the rotating-wave approximation.

Contribution

It introduces a precise solution to the time-periodic quantum Langevin equation, extending understanding of backaction evasion beyond common approximations.

Findings

Counterrotating terms cause additional spectral sidebands.

Main spectral peak is modified by counterrotating effects.

Backaction is due to periodic coupling to cavity-filtered shot noise.

Abstract

We present the exact analytical solution of the explicitly time-periodic quantum Langevin equation describing the dual-beam backaction-evasion measurement of a single mechanical oscillator quadrature due to Braginsky, Vorontsov and Thorne beyond the commonly used rotating-wave approximation. We show that counterrotating terms lead to extra sidebands in the optical and mechanical spectra and to a modification of the main peak. Physically, the backaction of the measurement is due to periodic coupling of the mechanical resonator to a light field quadrature that only contains cavity-filtered shot noise. Since this fact is independent of other degrees of freedom the resonator might be coupled to, our solution can be generalized, including to dissipatively or parametrically squeezed oscillators, as well as recent two-mode backaction evasion measurements.