Rapid mechanical squeezing with pulsed optomechanics

TL;DR

This paper introduces a fast, pulsed optomechanical protocol for squeezing mechanical oscillators, enabling rapid, coherent quantum state manipulation and potential improvements in force sensing and quantum information preservation.

Contribution

It proposes a novel pulsed scheme that achieves rapid, coherent squeezing of mechanical states within a fraction of a mechanical period, surpassing previous dissipative methods.

Findings

Protocol executes faster than a mechanical period

Enables coherent manipulation of quantum states

Potential for enhanced force sensing and quantum info preservation

Abstract

Mesoscopic mechanical oscillators can be prepared in quantum states and coherently manipulated using the optomechanical interaction. This has recently been used to prepare squeezed mechanical states. However, the scheme used in these experiments relies on slow, dissipative evolution that destroys the system's memory of its initial state. In this paper we propose a protocol based on a sequence of four pulsed optomechanical interactions. In addition to being coherent, our scheme executes in a time much shorter than a mechanical period. We analyse applications in impulsive force sensing and preservation of continuous-variable quantum information.