Control and measurement of electric dipole moments in levitated optomechanics

Abstract

Levitated optomechanical systems are rapidly becoming leading tools for precision sensing, enabling a high level of control over the sensor's center of mass motion, rotation and electric charge state. Higher-order multipole moments in the charge distribution, however, remain a major source of backgrounds. By applying controlled precessive torques to the dipole moment of a levitated microsphere in vacuum, we demonstrate cancellation of dipole-induced backgrounds by 2 orders of magnitude. We measure the dipole moments of ng-mass spheres and determine their scaling with sphere size, finding that the dominant torques arise from induced dipole moments related to dielectric-loss properties of the SiO${}_2$ spheres. Control of multipole moments in the charge distribution of levitated sensors is a key requirement to sufficiently reduce background sources in future applications.

5 pages, 4 figures

References in corpus (15)

• Measurement of the fine-structure constant as a test of the Standard Model
• A Spin Entanglement Witness for Quantum Gravity
• Gravitationally-induced entanglement between two massive particles is sufficient evidence of quantum effects in gravity
• Motional Quantum Ground State of a Levitated Nanoparticle from Room Temperature
• Search for Millicharged Particles Using Optically Levitated Microspheres
• Searching for new physics using optically levitated sensors
• Optimal Feedback Cooling of a Charged Levitated Nanoparticle with Adaptive Control
• Mechanical Quantum Sensing in the Search for Dark Matter
• Controlling the net charge on a nanoparticle optically levitated in vacuum
• Evidence for Nonlinear Isotope Shift in Yb${}^{+}$ Search for New Boson
• Search for composite dark matter with optically levitated sensors
• Quantum rotations of nanoparticles
• Improved isotope-shift-based bounds on bosons beyond the Standard Model through measurements of the ${}^2$D${}_{3/2}{-}^2$D${}_{5/2}$ interval in Ca${}^{+}$
• Testing collapse models with levitated nanoparticles: the detection challenge
• Limits on the abundance of millicharged particles bound to matter

Cited by in corpus (1)

• Interferometric control of nanorotor alignment