Optomechanical Schr\"{o}dinger cat states in a cavity Bose-Einstein condensate

TL;DR

This paper proposes a method to generate and manipulate large-scale mechanical and optical Schr"{o}dinger cat states using cavity Bose-Einstein condensates, enabling advancements in quantum information processing and sensing.

Contribution

It introduces a novel scheme leveraging BEC-based cavity optomechanics to produce larger and more distinguishable Schr"{o}dinger cat states than solid-state systems, with applications in quantum technologies.

Findings

Achieves nearly three orders of magnitude larger mechanical cat states.

Demonstrates quadrature squeezing of the mechanical mode.

Provides an efficient method for multicomponent optical cat states.

Abstract

Schr\"{o}dinger cat states, consisting of superpositions of macroscopically distinct states, provide key resources for a large number of emerging quantum technologies in quantum information processing. Here we propose how to generate and manipulate mechanical and optical Schr\"{o}dinger cat states with distinguishable superposition components by exploiting the unique properties of cavity optomechanical systems based on Bose-Einstein condensate. Specifically, we show that in comparison with its solid-state counterparts, almost a $3$ order of magnitude enhancement in the size of the mechanical Schr\"{o}dinger cat state could be achieved, characterizing a much smaller overlap between its two superposed coherent-state components. By exploiting this generated cat state, we further show how to engineer the quadrature squeezing of the mechanical mode. Besides, we also provide an efficient method to create multicomponent optical Schr\"{o}dinger cat states in our proposed scheme. Our work opens up a new way to achieve nonclassical states of massive objects, facilitating the development of fault-tolerant quantum processors and sensors.