English

Two-Phonon Resonance Drives Multicomponent Mechanical Cat States

Quantum Physics 2026-05-12 v1

Abstract

Using quadratic optomechanical coupling to prepare high-purity mechanical cat states is not feasible as its strength is several orders weaker than linear optomechanical coupling. Here, using only linear coupling in a multimode system, we achieve strong interaction between photons and two phonons, enabling the deterministic generation of high-purity multicomponent mechanical cats. Mediated by an auxiliary supermode, when other two optical supermodes satisfy the two-phonon resonance condition, the process whereby the annihilation of a high-frequency photon accompanied by the creation of a low-frequency photon and two phonons is strongly enhanced. Such resonant two-phonon process drives multiple rotations and interferences of mechanical coherent states, deterministically generating a multicomponent mechanical cat immune to both mechanical and optical losses. Our work provides an universal strategy for enhancing high-order phonon nonlinearities, paving the way for quantum state engineering, quantum precision measurement and fault-tolerant quantum computation.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2605.09914,
  title  = {Two-Phonon Resonance Drives Multicomponent Mechanical Cat States},
  author = {Nuo Wang and Haoyang Zhang and Yu Tian and Yadi Niu and Ying Gu},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2605.09914},
  year   = {2026}
}
R2 v1 2026-07-22T07:03:03.973Z