We investigate the relative phase between two weakly interacting 1D condensates of bosonic atoms after suddenly switching on the tunnel coupling. The following phase dynamics is governed by the quantum sine-Gordon equation. In the semiclassical limit of weak interactions, we observe the parametric amplification of quantum fluctuations leading to the formation of breathers with a finite lifetime. The typical lifetime and density of these "quasibreathers" are derived employing exact solutions of the classical sine-Gordon equation. Both depend on the initial relative phase between the condensates, which is considered as a tunable parameter.
Thermalization of interacting fermions and delocalization in Fock space
Clemens Neuenhahn,
Florian Marquardt
Physical Review E
85
(6)
060101
(2012)
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We investigate the onset of "eigenstate thermalization" and the crossover to ergodicity in a system of one-dimensional fermions with increasing interaction. We analyze the fluctuations in the expectation values of most relevant few-body operators with respect to eigenstates. It turns out that these are intimately related to the inverse participation ratio of eigenstates displayed in the operator eigenbasis. Based on this observation, we find good evidence that eigenstate thermalization should set in even for vanishingly small perturbations in the thermodynamic limit.
Observation of spontaneous Brillouin cooling
Gaurav Bahl,
Matthew Tomes,
Florian Marquardt,
Tal Carmon
Although bolometric- and ponderomotive-induced deflection of device boundaries are widely used for laser cooling, the electrostrictive Brillouin scattering of light from sound was considered an acousto-optical amplification-only process(1-7). It was suggested that cooling could be possible in multi-resonance Brillouin systems(5-8) when phonons experience lower damping than light(8). However, this regime was not accessible in electrostrictive Brillouin systems(1-3,5,6) as backscattering enforces high acoustical frequencies associated with high mechanical damping(1). Recently, forward Brillouin scattering(3) in microcavities(7) has allowed access to low-frequency acoustical modes where mechanical dissipation is lower than optical dissipation, in accordance with the requirements for cooling(8). Here we experimentally demonstrate cooling via such a forward Brillouin process in a microresonator. We show two regimes of operation for the electrostrictive Brillouin process: acoustical amplification as is traditional and an electrostrictive Brillouin cooling regime. Cooling is mediated by resonant light in one pumped optical mode, and spontaneously scattered resonant light in one anti-Stokes optical mode, that beat and electrostrictively attenuate the Brownian motion of the mechanical mode.
Stroboscopic observation of quantum many-body dynamics
Stefan Kessler,
Andreas Holzner,
Ian P. McCulloch,
Jan von Delft,
Florian Marquardt
Physical Review A
85
(1)
011605
(2012)
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Recent experiments have demonstrated single-site resolved observation of cold atoms in optical lattices. Thus, in the future it may be possible to take repeated snapshots of an interacting quantum many-body system during the course of its evolution. Here we address the impact of the resulting quantum (anti-)Zeno physics on the many-body dynamics. We use the time-dependent density-matrix renormalization group to obtain the time evolution of the full wave function, which is then periodically projected in order to simulate realizations of stroboscopic measurements. For the example of a one-dimensional lattice of spinless fermions with nearest-neighbor interactions, we find regimes for which many-particle configurations are stabilized or destabilized, depending on the interaction strength and the time between observations.
Enhanced Quantum Nonlinearities in a Two-Mode Optomechanical System
Max Ludwig,
Amir H. Safavi-Naeini,
Oskar Painter,
Florian Marquardt
In cavity optomechanics, nanomechanical motion couples to a localized optical mode. The regime of single-photon strong coupling is reached when the optical shift induced by a single phonon becomes comparable to the cavity linewidth. We consider a setup in this regime comprising two optical modes and one mechanical mode. For mechanical frequencies nearly resonant to the optical level splitting, we find the photon-phonon and the photon-photon interactions to be significantly enhanced. In addition to dispersive phonon detection in a novel regime, this offers the prospect of optomechanical photon measurement. We study these quantum nondemolition detection processes using both analytical and numerical approaches.
Optomechanical circuits for nanomechanical continuous variable quantum
state processing
Michael Schmidt,
Max Ludwig,
Florian Marquardt
New Journal of Physics
14
125005
(2012)
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We propose and analyze a nanomechanical architecture where light is used to perform linear quantum operations on a set of many vibrational modes. Suitable amplitude modulation of a single laser beam is shown to generate squeezing, entanglement and state transfer between modes that are selected according to their mechanical oscillation frequency. Current optomechanical devices based on photonic crystals, as well as other systems with sufficient control over multiple mechanical modes, may provide a platform for realizing this scheme.
Optomechanical cooling of levitated spheres with doubly resonant fields
G. A. T. Pender,
P. F. Barker,
Florian Marquardt,
J. Millen,
T. S. Monteiro
Physical Review A
85
(2)
021802
(2012)
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Optomechanical cooling of levitated dielectric particles represents a promising new approach in the quest to cool small mechanical resonators toward their quantum ground state. We investigate two-mode cooling of levitated nanospheres in a self-trapping regime. We identify a structure of overlapping, multiple cooling resonances and strong cooling even when one mode is blue-detuned. We show that the best regimes occur when both optical fields cooperatively cool and trap the nanosphere, where cooling rates are over an order of magnitude faster compared to corresponding single-resonance cooling rates.
Quantum Signatures of the Optomechanical Instability
Jiang Qian,
A. A. Clerk,
K. Hammerer,
Florian Marquardt
In the past few years, coupling strengths between light and mechanical motion in optomechanical setups have improved by orders of magnitude. Here we show that, in the standard setup under continuous laser illumination, the steady state of the mechanical oscillator can develop a nonclassical, strongly negative Wigner density if the optomechanical coupling is comparable to or larger than the optical decay rate and the mechanical frequency. Because of its robustness, such a Wigner density can be mapped using optical homodyne tomography. This feature is observed near the onset of the instability towards self-induced oscillations. We show that there are also distinct signatures in the photon-photon correlation function g((2))(t) in that regime, including oscillations decaying on a time scale not only much longer than the optical cavity decay time but even longer than the mechanical decay time.
Contact
Theory Division Prof. Florian Marquardt
Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light Staudtstr. 2 91058 Erlangen, Germany
