Abstract
Light forces can be harnessed to levitate mesoscopic objects and cool them down toward their motional quantum ground state. Roadblocks on the way to scale up levitation from a single to multiple particles in close proximity are the requirements to constantly monitor the particles’ positions as well as to engineer light fields that react fast and appropriately to their movements. Here, we present an approach that solves both problems at once. By exploiting the information stored in a time-dependent scattering matrix, we introduce a formalism enabling the identification of spatially modulated wavefronts, which simultaneously cool down multiple objects of arbitrary shapes. An experimental implementation is suggested based on stroboscopic scattering-matrix measurements and time-adaptive injections of modulated light fields.
- Received 1 April 2021
- Revised 7 June 2022
- Accepted 17 January 2023
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.130.083203
© 2023 American Physical Society
Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)
synopsis
Freezing Particle Motion with a Matrix
Published 22 February 2023
Researchers predict that the “scattering matrix” of a collection of particles could be used to slow the particles down, potentially allowing for the cooling of significantly more particles than is possible with current techniques.
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