Heidelberg 2015 – scientific programme

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A: Fachverband Atomphysik

A 21: Ultra-cold plasmas and Rydberg systems II (with Q)

A 21.5: Talk

Wednesday, March 25, 2015, 12:00–12:15, C/kHS

Probing mechanical oscillators with excited atoms — •Adrián Sanz Mora, Alexander Eisfeld, Sebastian Wüster, and Jan-Michael Rost — Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems, Nöthnitzer Strasse 38, 01187 Dresden, Germany

We investigate the use of electronically excited atoms to control the motion of nano-mechanical oscillators. A setup that exploits the optical response of a three-level ultracold atomic gas can serve as a means to drive the motion of a classically oscillating nano-mirror via electromagnetic radiation. The probe- and control beams that electromagnetically induce transparency (EIT) [1] in the gas, interact also with the vibrating mirror via radiation pressure forces. The control light field is phase-modulated by the mirror vibrations, thus altering the transparency of the atoms with respect to the probe light and leading to the generation of probe light sidebands. The frequency mismatch between the light fields and the atomic resonances can then be adjusted to either cool down or amplify the mirror motion. In another setup, by using highly excited Rydberg states of a beam of atoms one can realize protocols for quantum state reconstruction of mechanical motion [2] thanks to the extreme sensitivity of such atomic states to external perturbers.

[1] M. Fleischhauer, A. Imamoglu, J. P. Marangos, Rev. Mod. Phys. 77, 633 (2005).

[2] M. R. Vanner, I. Pikovski, M. S. Kim, http://arxiv.org/abs/1406.1013 (2014).