Effective description of a suspended mirror coupled to cavity light: Limitations of Q enhancement due to normal-mode splitting by an optical spring

Abstract

Pendulums have long been used as force sensors due to their ultimately low dissipation (high-quality factor) characteristic. They are widely used in the measurement of the gravitational constant, detection of gravitational waves, and determination of ultralight dark matter. Furthermore, it is expected that the quantum nature of gravity will be demonstrated by performing quantum control for macroscopic pendulums. Recently, we have demonstrated that quantum entanglement between two pendulums can be generated using an optical spring [D. Miki, N. Matsumoto, A. Matsumura, T. Shichijo, Y. Sugiyama, K. Yamamoto, and N. Yamamoto, arXiv:2210.13169 (2022)]; however, we have ignored that an optical spring can reduce the quality factor (Q-factor) by applying normal-mode splitting between the pendulum and rotational modes possessing relatively high dissipation. Herein, we analyze a system composed of a cylinder suspended using a beam (a suspended mirror, i.e., a pendulum) and an optical spring to consider normal-mode splitting. The reduction in Q-factor is determined only by the beam parameters: the ratio of the radius of the mirror to the length of the beam, and the ratio of the frequency of the rotational mode to the pendulum mode in the absence of cavity photons. In our analysis, we find that the reduction factor $4.38$ is reproduced, which is consistent with the experimental result in Matsumoto \textit{et al.} [N. Matsumoto, S. B. Catan$\tilde{\text{o}}$-Lopez, M. Sugawara, S. Suzuki, N. Abe, K. Komori, Y. Michimura, Y. Aso, and K. Edamatsu, Phys. Rev. Lett. 122, 071101 (2019)]. Our analysis shows that low dissipation (high quality) can be reached using an optical spring for the realistic pendulum system considering the rotational degree of freedom.