Speaker: Andrei Militaru (ETH Zürich)

Title: Towards coherent wavefunction expansion of the motion of an optically levitated nanoparticle

Abstract: Optically levitated nanoparticles represent prime candidates for the study and understanding of quantum mechanics at the macroscopic scale. One of the key features that distinguish particles levitated in free space from other traditional optomechanical platforms is the possibility to tune the mechanical potential by modulating the power of the trapping laser. When switching the trapping power rapidly to a lower value, we induce a frequency jump in the mechanical resonance frequency. After the frequency jump, the particle follows free evolution for an initial time. During this free evolution, correlations between the momentum and the position of the nanoparticle arise, leading to a coherent expansion of the motional wavefunction. This coherent wavefunction expansion represents a first step towards the experimental generation of a macroscopic quantum system. In this talk, I will present our most recent progresses towards the experimental implementation of the frequency jump protocol, including the main results and some challenges that yet to be overcome.