Optomechanical Entanglement Between an Ion and an Optical Cavity Field

Abstract

We study an optomechanical system in which the mechanical motion of a single trapped ion is coupled to a cavity field for the realization of a strongly quantum correlated two-mode system. We show that for large pump intensities the steady state photon number exhibits bistable behaviour. We further analyze the occurrence of normal mode splitting (NMS) due to mixing of the fluctuations of the cavity field and the fluctuations of the ion motion which indicates a coherent energy exchange. We also find that in the parameter regime where NMS exists, the steady state of the system shows continuous variable entanglement. Such a two-mode optomechanical system can be used for the realization of continuous variable quantum information interfaces and networks.