A trapped ion in an optical cavity: numerical study of an optomechanical transition in the few-photon regime

Abstract

We consider an optomechanical system composed by a trapped ion dispersively coupled to a single mode of a pumped optical cavity. We focus in a parameter range for which the semiclassical description predicts two clearly distinct equilibrium configurations in the limits of small and large photon pumping, while a bistable regime is found for intermediate pumping. This semiclassical description, however, is not valid in close proximity of the system transitions or when the mean photon number is low. Here we provide a numerical analysis of the fully quantum state in the few-photon regime, exploring the features of the asymptotic state across the transition and analyzing possible markers of semiclassical bistability. We find an increase in the entropy of the system and of the entanglement in the transition region, but no clear signatures of metastability in the spectrum of the evolution.

14 pages including appendices, 9 figures

References in corpus (14)

• Entanglement in continuous variable systems: Recent advances and current perspectives
• Roton-type mode softening in a quantum gas with cavity-mediated long-range interactions
• Quantifying the non-Gaussian character of a quantum state by quantum relative entropy
• Critical dynamical properties of a first-order dissipative phase transition
• A measure of the non-Gaussian character of a quantum state
• Dissipative Phase Transition in the Open Quantum Rabi Model
• Tuning friction atom-by-atom in an ion-crystal simulator
• A single ion coupled to an optical fiber cavity
• Frenkel-Kontorova model with cold trapped ions
• Metastability in an open quantum Ising model
• Pinning an Ion with an Intracavity Optical Lattice
• Structural transitions of ion strings in quantum potentials
• Metastability in the driven-dissipative Rabi model
• Noise-induced transport in the motion of trapped ions