Abstract
Witnessing quantumness in mesoscopic objects is an important milestone for both quantum technologies and foundational reasons. Cavity optomechanics offers the ideal system to achieve this by combing high precision optical measurements with mechanical oscillators. However, mechanical quantumness can only be established if the behaviour is incompatible with any classical description of an oscillator. After explicitly considering classical and hybrid quantum-classical descriptions of an optomechanical system, we rule out squeezing of the optical field as such a witness by showing it is also predicted without quantizing the mechanical oscillator.
Highlights
Witnessing the quantum nature of a physical system is a central and recurrent goal in physics
After explicitly considering classical and hybrid quantum-classical descriptions of an optomechanical system, we rule out squeezing of the optical field as such a witness by showing it is predicted without quantizing the mechanical oscillator
We show that optical squeezing is predicted without quantizing the mechanical oscillator and is eliminated as a mechanical quantumness witness, regardless of the oscillator temperature
Summary
Witnessing the quantum nature of a physical system is a central and recurrent goal in physics. For experiments without such unambiguous witnesses, a classical description may predict the observed result In this case, even a nonclassical state may not necessarily have its nonclassicality revealed. Characterizing which aspects of the optical field can demonstrate the quantumness of the mechanical oscillator is of foundational interest. This has been briefly investigated in optomechanics in the context of tracing the origin of experimentally observed sideband asymmetry [30,31,32]. A direct theoretical comparison between quantum and classical descriptions of the optomechanically generated phase has been considered in light of interferometric experiments [33].
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