Nonclassical states of levitated macroscopic objects beyond the ground state

Abstract

The preparation of nonclassical states of mechanical motion conclusively proves that control over such motion has reached the quantum level. We investigate ways to achieve nonclassical states of macroscopic mechanical oscillators, particularly levitated nanoparticles. We analyze the possibility of the conditional squeezing of the levitated particle induced by the homodyne detection of light in a pulsed optomechanical setup within the resolved sideband regime. We focus on the regimes that are experimentally relevant for the levitated systems where the ground-state cooling is not achievable and the optomechanical coupling is comparable with the cavity linewidth. The analysis is thereby performed beyond the adiabatic regime routinely used for the bulk optomechanical pulsed systems. The results show that the quantum state of a levitated particle could be squeezed below the ground state variance within a wide range of temperatures. This opens a path to test for the first time nonclassical control of levitating nanoparticles beyond the ground state.