Observation of non-Markovian micro-mechanical Brownian motion

All physical systems are to some extent open and interacting with their environment. This insight, basic as it may seem, gives rise to the necessity of protecting quantum systems from decoherence in quantum technologies and is at the heart of the emergence of classical properties in quantum physics. The precise decoherence mechanisms, however, are often unknown for a given system. In this work, we make use of an opto-mechanical resonator to obtain key information about spectral densities of its condensed-matter heat bath. In sharp contrast to what is commonly assumed in high-temperature quantum Brownian motion describing the dynamics of the mechanical degree of freedom, based on a statistical analysis of the emitted light, it is shown that this spectral density is highly non-Ohmic, reflected by non-Markovian dynamics, which we quantify. We conclude by elaborating on further applications of opto-mechanical systems in open system identification.Comment: 5+6 pages, 3 figures. Replaced by final versio

Visualizing quantum entanglement and the EPR paradox during the photodissociation of a diatomic molecule using two ultrashort laser pulses

We investigate theoretically the dissociative ionization of a H2+ molecule using two ultrashort laser (pump-probe) pulses. The pump pulse prepares a dissociating nuclear wave packet on an ungerade surface of H2+. Next, an UV (or XUV) probe pulse ionizes this dissociating state at large (R = 20 - 100 bohr) internuclear distance. We calculate the momenta distributions of protons and photoelectrons which show a (two-slit-like) interference structure. A general, simple interference formula is obtained which depends on the electron and protons momenta, as well as on the pump-probe delay on the pulses durations and polarizations. This interference can be interpreted as visualization of an electron state delocalized over the two-centres. This state is an entangled state of a hydrogen atom with a momentum p and a proton with an opposite momentum. -p dissociating on the ungerade surface of H2+. This pump-probe scheme can be used to reveal the nonlocality of the electron which intuitively should be localized on just one of the protons separated by the distance R much larger than the atomic Bohr orbit

No Drama Quantum Theory?

This work builds on the following result of a previous article (quant-ph/0509044): the matter field can be naturally eliminated from the equations of the scalar electrodynamics (the Klein-Gordon-Maxwell electrodynamics) in the unitary gauge. The resulting equations describe independent dynamics of the electromagnetic field (they form a closed system of partial differential equations). An improved derivation of this surprising result is offered in the current work. It is also shown that for this system of equations, a generalized Carleman linearization (Carleman embedding) procedure generates a system of linear equations in the Hilbert space, which looks like a second-quantized theory and is equivalent to the original nonlinear system on the set of solutions of the latter. Thus, the relevant local realistic model can be embedded into a quantum field theory. This model is equivalent to a well-established model - the scalar electrodynamics, so it correctly describes a large body of experimental data. Although it does not describe the electronic spin and possibly some other experimental facts, it may be of great interest as a "no drama quantum theory", as simple (in principle) as classical electrodynamics. Possible issues with the Bell theorem are discussed.Comment: 4 page

Experimental violation of a cluster state Bell inequality

Cluster states are a new type of multiqubit entangled states with entanglement properties exceptionally well suited for quantum computation. In the present work, we experimentally demonstrate that correlations in a four-qubit linear cluster state cannot be described by local realism. This exploration is based on a recently derived Bell-type inequality [V. Scarani et al., Phys. Rev A 71, 042325 (2005)] which is tailored, by using a combination of three- and four-particle correlations, to be maximally violated by cluster states but not violated at all by GHZ states. We observe a cluster state Bell parameter of $2.59\pm 0.08$, which is more than 7 standard deviations larger than the threshold of 2 imposed by local realism.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure

Nonlocality of cluster states of qubits

We investigate cluster states of qubits with respect to their non-local properties. We demonstrate that a Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) argument holds for any cluster state: more precisely, it holds for any partial, thence mixed, state of a small number of connected qubits (five, in the case of one-dimensional lattices). In addition, we derive a new Bell inequality that is maximally violated by the 4-qubit cluster state and is not violated by the 4-qubit GHZ state.Comment: 5 pages; paragraph V.B contains a comparison with Guehne et al., quant-ph/041005

Large Quantum Superpositions and Interference of Massive Nanometer-Sized Objects

We propose a method to prepare and verify spatial quantum superpositions of a nanometer-sized object separated by distances of the order of its size. This method provides unprecedented bounds for objective collapse models of the wave function by merging techniques and insights from cavity quantum optomechanics and matter wave interferometry. An analysis and simulation of the experiment is performed taking into account standard sources of decoherence. We provide an operational parameter regime using present day and planned technology.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, to appear in PR

Radiation-pressure self-cooling of a micromirror in a cryogenic environment

We demonstrate radiation-pressure cavity-cooling of a mechanical mode of a micromirror starting from cryogenic temperatures. To achieve that, a high-finesse Fabry-Perot cavity (F\approx 2200) was actively stabilized inside a continuous-flow 4He cryostat. We observed optical cooling of the fundamental mode of a 50mu x 50 mu x 5.4 mu singly-clamped micromirror at \omega_m=3.5 MHz from 35 K to approx. 290 mK. This corresponds to a thermal occupation factor of \approx 1x10^4. The cooling performance is only limited by the mechanical quality and by the optical finesse of the system. Heating effects, e.g. due to absorption of photons in the micromirror, could not be observed. These results represent a next step towards cavity-cooling a mechanical oscillator into its quantum ground state

A high-reflectivity high-Q micromechanical Bragg-mirror

We report on the fabrication and characterization of a micromechanical oscillator consisting only of a free-standing dielectric Bragg mirror with high optical reflectivity and high mechanical quality. The fabrication technique is a hybrid approach involving laser ablation and dry etching. The mirror has a reflectivity of 99.6%, a mass of 400ng, and a mechanical quality factor Q of approximately 10^4. Using this micromirror in a Fabry Perot cavity, a finesse of 500 has been achieved. This is an important step towards designing tunable high-Q high-finesse cavities on chip.Comment: 3 pages, 2 figure