Today's mechanical sensors are capable of detecting extremely weak perturbations while operating near the standard quantum limit. However, further improvements can be made in both sensitivity and bandwidth when we reduce the noise originating from the process of measurement itself—the quantum-mechanical backaction of measurement—and go below this ‘standard’ limit, possibly approaching the Heisenberg limit. One of the ways to eliminate this noise is by measuring a quantum nondemolition variable such as the momentum in a free-particle system. Here, we propose and characterize theoretical models for direct velocity measurement that utilize traditional electric and magnetic transducer designs to generate a signal while enabling this backaction evasion. We consider the general readout of this signal via electric or magnetic field sensing by creating toy models analogous to the standard optomechanical position-sensing problem, thereby facilitating the assessment of measurement-added noise. Using simple models that characterize a wide range of transducers, we find that the choice of readout scheme—voltage or current—for each mechanical detector configuration implies access to either the position or velocity of the mechanical subsystem. This in turn suggests a path forward for key fundamental physics experiments such as the direct detection of dark matter particles. Published by the American Physical Society 2024
Today's mechanical sensors are capable of detecting extremely weak perturbations while operating near the standard quantum limit. However, further improvements can be made in both sensitivity and bandwidth when we reduce the noise originating from the process of measurement itself—the quantum-mechanical backaction of measurement—and go below this ‘standard’ limit, possibly approaching the Heisenberg limit. One of the ways to eliminate this noise is by measuring a quantum nondemolition variable such as the momentum in a free-particle system. Here, we propose and characterize theoretical models for direct velocity measurement that utilize traditional electric and magnetic transducer designs to generate a signal while enabling this backaction evasion. We consider the general readout of this signal via electric or magnetic field sensing by creating toy models analogous to the standard optomechanical position-sensing problem, thereby facilitating the assessment of measurement-added noise. Using simple models that characterize a wide range of transducers, we find that the choice of readout scheme—voltage or current—for each mechanical detector configuration implies access to either the position or velocity of the mechanical subsystem. This in turn suggests a path forward for key fundamental physics experiments such as the direct detection of dark matter particles. Published by the American Physical Society 2024
Optomechanical sensors are capable of transducing external perturbations to resolvable optical signals. A particular regime of interest is that of high-bandwidth force detection, where an impulse is delivered to the system over a short period of time. Exceedingly sensitive impulse detection has been proposed to observe very weak signals like those due to long-range interactions with dark matter that require much higher sensitivities than current sensors can provide. Quantum resources to go beyond the traditional standard quantum limit of these sensors include squeezing of the light used to transduce the signal, backaction evasion by measuring the optimal quadrature, and quantum nondemolition (QND) measurements that reduce backaction directly. These methods have been developed in the context of gravitational wave detection for target frequencies in the audio band range. Here, we provide the theoretical limits to quantum noise reduction for higher and broader frequency targets, such as those from dark matter signals, while combining quantum-enhanced readout techniques based on squeezed light and QND measurements with optomechanical sensors. We demonstrate that backaction evasion through QND techniques dramatically reduces the technical challenges presented when using squeezed light for broadband force detection, paving the way for combining multiple quantum noise reduction techniques for enhanced sensitivity in the context of impulse metrology.
The quantum measurement of any observable naturally leads to noise added by the act of measurement. Approaches to evade or reduce this noise can lead to substantial improvements in a wide variety of sensors, from laser interferometers to precision magnetometers and more. In this paper, we develop a measurement protocol based upon pioneering work by the gravitational wave community which allows for reduction of added noise from measurement by coupling an optical field to the momentum of a small mirror. As a specific implementation, we present a continuous measurement protocol using a double-ring optomechanical cavity. We demonstrate that, with experimentally relevant parameters, this protocol can lead to significant backaction noise evasion, yielding measurement noise below the standard quantum limit over many decades of frequency.
Quantum mechanics is potentially advantageous for certain information-processing tasks, but its probabilistic nature and requirement of measurement backaction often limit the precision of conventional classical information-processing devices, such as sensors and atomic clocks.Here we show that, by engineering the dynamics of coupled quantum systems, it is possible to construct a subsystem that evades the measurement backaction of quantum mechanics, at all times of interest, and obeys any classical dynamics, linear or nonlinear, that we choose.We call such a system a quantum-mechanics-free subsystem (QMFS).All of the observables of a QMFS are quantum-nondemolition (QND) observables; moreover, they are dynamical QND observables, thus demolishing the widely held belief that QND observables are constants of motion.QMFSs point to a new strategy for designing classical information-processing devices in regimes where quantum noise is detrimental, unifying previous approaches that employ QND observables, backaction evasion, and quantum noise cancellation.Potential applications include gravitational-wave detection, optomechanical-force sensing, atomic magnetometry, and classical computing.Demonstrations of dynamical QMFSs include the generation of broadband squeezed light for use in interferometric gravitational-wave detection, experiments using entangled atomic-spin ensembles, and implementations of the quantum Toffoli gate.
Abstract In cavity magnomechanical systems, magnetic excitations couple simultaneously with mechanical vibrations and microwaves, incorporating the tunability of magnetism and the long lifetimes of mechanical modes. Applications of such systems, such as thermometry and sensing, require precise measurement of the mechanical degree-of-freedom with as less added noise as possible, a feature not proposed in the literature. In this paper, we propose a scheme for realizing backaction evading measurements of the mechanical vibrations in cavity magnomechanics. Our proposal involves driving the microwave cavity with two tones separated by twice the phonon frequency and with amplitudes satisfying a balance relation. We show that the minimum added imprecision noise is obtained for drives centered around the lower frequency magnon-microwave polaritons, which can beat the standard quantum limit at modest drive amplitudes. Our scheme is a simple and flexible way of engineering backaction evasion measurements that can be further generalized to other multimode systems.
Quantum mechanics is potentially advantageous for certain information-processing tasks, but its probabilistic nature and requirement of measurement back action often limit the precision of conventional classical information-processing devices, such as sensors and atomic clocks. Here we show that by engineering the dynamics of coupled quantum systems, it is possible to construct a subsystem that evades the measurement back action of quantum mechanics, at all times of interest, and obeys any classical dynamics, linear or nonlinear, that we choose. We call such a system a quantum-mechanics-free subsystem (QMFS). All of the observables of a QMFS are quantum-nondemolition (QND) observables; moreover, they are dynamical QND observables, thus demolishing the widely held belief that QND observables are constants of motion. QMFSs point to a new strategy for designing classical information-processing devices in regimes where quantum noise is detrimental, unifying previous approaches that employ QND observables, back-action evasion, and quantum noise cancellation. Potential applications include gravitational-wave detection, optomechanical force sensing, atomic magnetometry, and classical computing. Demonstrations of dynamical QMFSs include the generation of broad-band squeezed light for use in interferometric gravitational-wave detection, experiments using entangled atomic spin ensembles, and implementations of the quantum Toffoli gate.
Detailed understanding of physical measurements is essential for devising efficient metrological strategies and measurement-feedback schemes, as well as finding fundamental limitations on measurement sensitivity. In the quantum regime, measurements modify the state of the system of interest through measurement backaction as a direct consequence of the Heisenberg principle. In cavity optomechanics and electromechanics, a plethora of strategies exist for measuring the mechanical motion using electromagnetic fields, each leading to different competition between measurement imprecision and backaction. While this range of techniques allows broad applications of optomechanical and electromechanical devices, it makes direct comparison of different measurement methods difficult. We develop a formalism for quantifying the performance of optomechanical measurements using a few relevant figures of merit. Our approach is inspired by similar characterizations in quantum optics and quantifies the main properties of quantum measurements -- the ability to distinguish different quantum states and preservation of signal in the presence of measurement noise. We demonstrate our concept on the most common optomechanical measurements -- displacement detection, coherent quantum noise cancellation, and quantum nondemolition measurements -- and perform detailed analysis of errors in optomechanical nondemolition measurements. This newly acquired knowledge allows us to propose a strategy for quantum nondemolition measurements in levitodynamics using coherent scattering. Our results complement existing knowledge of linear optomechanical interactions and open the way to new understanding of optomechanical measurements, thus allowing also novel applications of optomechanical devices in fundamental physics and quantum technologies.