Engineering strong interactions between quantum systems is essential for many phenomena of quantum physics and technology. Typically, strong coupling relies on short-range forces or on placing the systems in high-quality electromagnetic resonators, restricting the range of the coupling to small distances. We use a free-space laser beam to strongly couple a collective atomic spin and a micromechanical membrane over a distance of one meter in a room-temperature environment. The coupling is highly tunable and allows the observation of normal-mode splitting, coherent energy exchange oscillations, two-mode thermal noise squeezing and dissipative coupling. Our approach to engineer coherent long-distance interactions with light makes it possible to couple very different systems in a modular way, opening up a range of opportunities for quantum control and coherent feedback networks.
@article{arxiv.2004.14424,
title = {Light-mediated strong coupling between a mechanical oscillator and atomic spins one meter apart},
author = {Thomas M. Karg and Baptiste Gouraud and Chun Tat Ngai and Gian-Luca Schmid and Klemens Hammerer and Philipp Treutlein},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2004.14424},
year = {2020}
}