Wigner Function Reconstruction in Levitated Optomechanics

We demonstrate the reconstruction of theWigner function from marginal distributions of the motion of a single trapped particle using homodyne detection. We show that it is possible to generate quantum states of levitated optomechanical systems even under the efect of continuous measurement by the tr...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Rashid Muddassar, Toroš Marko, Ulbricht Hendrik
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: De Gruyter 2017-10-01
Series:Quantum Measurements and Quantum Metrology
Subjects:
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1515/qmetro-2017-0003
Description
Summary:We demonstrate the reconstruction of theWigner function from marginal distributions of the motion of a single trapped particle using homodyne detection. We show that it is possible to generate quantum states of levitated optomechanical systems even under the efect of continuous measurement by the trapping laser light. We describe the opto-mechanical coupling for the case of the particle trapped by a free-space focused laser beam, explicitly for the case without an optical cavity. We use the scheme to reconstruct the Wigner function of experimental data in perfect agreement with the expected Gaussian distribution of a thermal state of motion. This opens a route for quantum state preparation in levitated optomechanics.
ISSN:2299-114X