Proposal for measuring Newtonian constant of gravitation at an exceptional point in an optomechanical system

Abstract

We develop a quantum mechanical method of measuring the Newtonian constant of gravitation, G. In this method, an optomechanical system consisting of two cavities and two membrane resonators is used. The added source mass would induce the shifts of the eigenfrequencies of the supermodes. Via detecting the shifts, we can perform our measurement of G. Furthermore, our system can features exceptional point (EP) which are branch point singularities of the spectrum and eigenfunctions. In the paper, we demonstrate that operating the system at EP can enhance our measurement of G. In addition, we derive the relationship between EP enlarged eigenfrequency shift and the Newtonian constant. This work provides a way to engineer EP-assisted optomechanical devices for applications in the field of precision measurement of G