Optical Levitation of a Mirror for Reaching the Standard Quantum Limit

TL;DR

This paper introduces a minimalistic optical levitation setup using two aligned cavities to levitate a mirror, demonstrating feasibility of reaching the standard quantum limit with current technology for testing macroscopic quantum mechanics.

Contribution

It presents a novel, simplified optical levitation method with only two laser beams capable of reaching the SQL for macroscopic mirrors.

Findings

Feasibility of reaching the SQL with current technology.

Design ensures Brownian vibration is below the SQL.

Minimalist cavity geometry for optical levitation.

Abstract

We propose a new method to optically levitate a macroscopic mirror with two vertical Fabry-P{\'e}rot cavities linearly aligned. This configuration gives the simplest possible optical levitation in which the number of laser beams used is the minimum of two. We demonstrate that reaching the standard quantum limit (SQL) of a displacement measurement with our system is feasible with current technology. The cavity geometry and the levitated mirror parameters are designed to ensure that the Brownian vibration of the mirror surface is smaller than the SQL. Our scheme provides a promising tool for testing macroscopic quantum mechanics.