Physical Society Colloquium

Quantum effects (and topological effects) in the motion of a millimeter-scale object

Jack Harris

Department of Physics
Yale University

A major challenge in physics is to understand how classical behavior emerges from laws that are fundamentally quantum. The field of optomechanics seeks to address this issue by studying quantum effects in the motion of macroscopic objects that are coupled to individual photons. In the past few years, experiments have demonstrated several quantum effects in these devices, including ground-state cooling, entanglement, and quantum back-action. I will give an overview of our group's work on these topics. I will also describe experiments in which the same devices (in the classical regime) exhibit a normal-mode spectrum with non-trivial topology. Although this topological feature arises generically in coupled, damped harmonic oscillators, its utility as a control tool has only been appreciated in the past few years. I will show measurements of the topological control that is enabled by this feature.