Critical Ambient Pressure and Critical Cooling Rate in Optomechanics of Electromagnetically Levitated Nanoparticles

TL;DR

This paper introduces the concepts of critical ambient pressure and critical feedback cooling rates in optomechanics of levitated nanoparticles, analyzing their effects on trapping stability and cooling limits, with implications for ground-state cooling.

Contribution

It defines critical ambient pressure and feedback cooling rates, providing a theoretical framework and derivations that clarify their roles in nanoparticle optomechanics and cooling performance.

Findings

Critical ambient pressure can be very low, not limiting ground-state cooling.

Critical feedback cooling rates limit particle trapping stability.

Feedback cooling of the z component via Coulomb force yields optimal performance.

Abstract

The concept of critical ambient pressure is introduced. The particle escapes from its trap when the ambient pressure becomes comparable with or smaller than a critical value, even if the particle motion is cooled by one of the feedback (or cavity) cooling schemes realized so far. The critical ambient pressure may be so small that it is not a limiting factor in ground-state cooling, but critical feedback cooling rates, which are also introduced, are limiting factors. The particle escapes from its trap if any of the feedback cooling rates becomes comparable with or larger than its critical value. Critical feedback cooling rate is different from the well-known manifestation of the measurement noise. The critical feedback cooling rate corresponding to a certain component of the particle motion is usually smaller than the optimum feedback cooling rate at which the standard quantum limit happens unless that component is cooled by the Coulomb force (instead of the optical gradient force). Also, given that the measurement noise for the z component is smaller than the measurement noises for the other two components (assuming that the beam illuminating the particle for photodetection propagates parallel to the z axis), the feedback scheme in which the z component of the particle motion is cooled by the Coulomb force has the best performance. This conclusion is in agreement with the experimental results published after writing the first version of this paper. The dependence of the critical ambient pressure, the critical feedback cooling rates, and the minimum achievable mean phonon numbers on the parameters of the system is derived, and can be verified experimentally. The insights into and the subtle points about the EM force, the EM force fluctuations, and the measurement noise that are presented might be useful in many systems besides those examined here.