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High-sensitivity optical monitoring of a micro-mechanical resonator with a quantum-limited optomechanical sensor

O. Arcizet, P. -F. Cohadon, T. Briant, M. Pinard, A. Heidmann, J. -M. Mackowski, C. Michel, L. Pinard, O. Francais, L. Rousseau

quant-pharXiv:quant-ph/0605174

Abstract

We experimentally demonstrate the high-sensitivity optical monitoring of a micro-mechanical resonator and its cooling by active control. Coating a low-loss mirror upon the resonator, we have built an optomechanical sensor based on a very high-finesse cavity (30000). We have measured the thermal noise of the resonator with a quantum-limited sensitivity at the 10-19 m/rootHz level, and cooled the resonator down to 5K by a cold-damping technique. Applications of our setup range from quantum optics experiments to the experimental demonstration of the quantum ground state of a macroscopic mechanical resonator.

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