Phonon quantum nondemolition measurements in nonlinearly coupled optomechanical cavities

Abstract

In the field of cavity optomechanics, proposals for quantum nondemolition (QND) measurements of phonon number provide a promising avenue by which one can study the quantum nature of nanoscale mechanical resonators. Here we investigate these QND measurements for an optomechanical system whereby quadratic coupling arises due to shared symmetries between a single optical resonance and a mechanical mode. We establish a relaxed limit on the amount of linear coupling that can exist in this type of system while still allowing for QND measurements of mechanical Fock states. The ability to perform optomechanical QND measurements of this nature would allow one to probe the decoherence of these mesoscopic states, providing an experimental test bed for quantum collapse theories.