Probing wave function collapse models with a classically driven mechanical oscillator

Abstract

We show that the interaction of a pulsed laser light with a mechanical oscillator through the radiation pressure results in an opto-mechanical entangled state in which the photon number is correlated with the oscillator position. Interestingly, the mechanical oscillator can be delocalized over a large range of positions when driven by an intense laser light. This provides a simple yet sensitive method to probe hypothetic post-quantum theories including an explicit wave function collapse model, like the Diosi and Penrose model. We propose an entanglement witness to reveal the quantum nature of this opto-mechanical state as well as an optical technique to record the decoherence of the mechanical oscillator. We also report on a detailed feasibility study giving the experimental challenges that need to be overcome to confirm or rule out predictions from explicit wave function collapse models.

11 pages, 2 figures. Corrections, and added appendix

References in corpus (6)

• Single-photon nonlinearities in two-mode optomechanics
• Optomechanical sensing of spontaneous wave-function collapse
• Creating and Verifying a Quantum Superposition in a Micro-optomechanical System
• Quantum State Orthogonalization and a Toolset for Quantum Optomechanical Phonon Control
• Testing spontaneous wave-function collapse models on classical mechanical oscillators
• Phonon number measurements using single photon opto-mechanics

Cited by in corpus (6)

• Discriminating the effects of collapse models from environmental diffusion with levitated nanospheres
• Detecting continuous spontaneous localisation with charged bodies in a Paul trap
• Probing Spontaneous Wave-Function Collapse with Entangled Levitating Nanospheres
• Bounding quantum gravity inspired decoherence using atom interferometry
• Towards a theory of wavefunction collapse Part 1: How the Diosi-Penrose criterion and Born's rule can be derived from semiclassical gravity, and how the criterion can be relativistically generalised with help of the Einstein-Hilbert action
• How long single-photon detectors stay in quantum superpositions during detection according to the Diósi-Penrose criterion