Atomic Physics Seminar: Benjamin Stickler, Imperial College, UK, “Levitated optomechanics with rotating nanoparticles”

Levitated optomechanics with rotating nanoparticles
Levitating nanoparticles with a laser field and optically cooling them into the quantum regime offers an attractive route towards fundamental tests of quantum mechanics. As demonstrated recently, the interaction between the nanoparticle and the light field can be increased by using rod-shaped objects instead of spheres [1,2]. In this talk I will present the quantum theory of nanorotors interacting with laser fields [3] and ambient environments [4] and argue that cooling the rotation of aspherical nanoparticles into the deep quantum regime opens the door for the observation of macroscopic orientational quantum revivals [5], a complete recurrence of the initial orientation after integer multiples of the revival time.
[1] Kuhn, Asenbaum, Kosloff, Sclafani, Stickler, Nimmrichter, Hornberger, Cheshnovsky, Patolsky, and Arndt, Nano Lett. 15, 5604 (2015)
[2] Kuhn, Stickler, Kosloff, Patolsky, Hornberger, Arndt, and Millen, Nat. Commun. 8, 1670 (2017)
[3] Stickler, Nimmrichter, Martinetz, Kuhn, Arndt and Hornberger, Phys. Rev. A 94, 033818 (2016)
[4] Stickler, Schrinski, and Hornberger, Phys. Rev. Lett. 121, 040401 (2018)
[5] Stickler, Papendell, Kuhn, Schrinski, Millen, Arndt, and Hornberger, New J. Phys. 20, 122001 (2018)
Host: David Moore (david.c.moore@yale.edu)