Realising Einstein's mirror: Optomechanical damping with a thermal photon gas
Quantum Physics
2021-06-15 v2 Atomic and Molecular Clusters
Optics
Abstract
In 1909 Einstein described the thermalization of a mirror within a blackbody cavity by collisions with thermal photons. While the time to thermalize the motion of even a microscale or nanoscale object is so long that it is not feasible, we show that it is using the high intensity light from an amplified thermal light source with a well-defined chemical potential. We predict damping of the center-of mass motion due to this effect on times scales of seconds for small optomechanical systems, such as levitated nanoparticles, allowing experimental observation.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2104.02708,
title = {Realising Einstein's mirror: Optomechanical damping with a thermal photon gas},
author = {A. T. M. Anishur Rahman and P. F. Barker},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2104.02708},
year = {2021}
}
Comments
4 figures, 11 pages