Noise-induced transitions in optomechanical synchronization

Abstract

We study how quantum and thermal noise affects synchronization of two optomechanical limit-cycle oscillators. Classically, in the absence of noise, optomechanical systems tend to synchronize either inphase or anti-phase. Taking into account the fundamental quantum noise, we find a regime where fluctuations drive transitions between these classical synchronization states. We investigate how this 'mixed' synchronization regime emerges from the noiseless system by studying the classical-toquantum crossover and we show how the time scales of the transitions vary with the effective noise strength. In addition, we compare the effects of thermal noise to the effects of quantum noise. OPEN ACCESS RECEIVED

Synchronization of micromasers

“…This is something that we will make extensive use of here, though it should be noted that the choice is by no means unique [18,22]. The relative phase distribution for the micromaser system is obtained by solving for the steady-state of the master equation (1) using standard numerical methods [40].…”

“…Synchronization has also been studied in quantum optical systems such as the laser, although generally focussing on regimes where approximate semiclassical descriptions work well [2,3]. In the last few years there has been considerable interest in studying the synchronization of oscillators and related systems [4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22] close to threshold or at low excitation levels where semiclassical approaches break down and fully quantum mechanical calculations are required. Recent theoretical work has explored different ways of quantifying synchronization in quantum oscillators [5,7,14,15,20], as well as investigating the connection between it and measures of correlation such as mutual information and entanglement [5,8,10,15,19].…”

“…Studies of synchronization effects in the quantum regime have largely concentrated on the behavior of simple model systems such as van der Pol oscillators [7,9,10,12,15,17,19,21] (together with closely related models [22]), though a number of other systems including atomic ensembles [13,16] and optomechanical oscillators [5,6,12,18] have also been investigated. In this article we investigate synchronization in a very different model system consisting of two weakly coupled micromasers.…”

Observing quantum synchronization blockade in circuit quantum electrodynamics

“…when the limit cycle steady states of the oscillators are quantum states with no classical analog. Previous work on quantum synchronization has focused mainly on theoretically identifying and characterizing differences between classical and quantum synchronization [7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18] and on potential applications of the latter [19][20][21]. Experimental observation of quantum synchronization phenomena is hindered by the stringent requirements of high quantum coherence and strong nonlinearities, both of which are also key requirements for quantum computation.…”

Enhancement of quantum synchronization in optomechanical system by modulating the couplings

“…Mari et al proposed a scheme to generalize the classical synchronization concept to quantum system and measured the complete synchronization and phase synchronization in the continuous variable (CV) system [5]. Consequently, this work has rapidly met the increasing interest of quantum synchronization in many kinds of systems, such as optomechanics [6,7], cavity quantum electrodynamics [8,9], atomic ensembles [10][11][12], van der Pol (VdP) oscillators [13][14][15][16][17], Bose-Einstein condensation [18], superconducting circuit systems [19,20], and so on. Moreover, the schemes of realizing quantum synchronization are also proposed both expermantally [21][22][23][24][25] and theoretically [26][27][28][29][30][31].…”