Ground-state cooling of mechanical resonatorsby quantum reservoir engineering

Abstract

Cooling a mechanical oscillator to its ground state underpins many applications ranging from ultra-precise sensing to quantum information processing. The authors propose a new scheme that addresses the problem of the simultaneous cooling of many mechanical resonators with nearby frequencies. Ground-state cooling of multiple mechanical resonators becomes vital to employ them in various applications ranging from ultra-precise sensing to quantum information processing. Here we propose a scheme for simultaneous cooling of multiple degenerate or near-degenerate mechanical resonators to their quantum ground-state, which is otherwise a challenging goal to achieve. As opposed to standard laser cooling schemes where coherence renders the motion of a resonator to its ground-state, we consider an incoherent thermal source to achieve the same aim. The underlying physical mechanism of cooling is explained by investigating a direct connection between the laser sideband cooling and ""cooling by heating"". Our advantageous scheme of cooling enabled by quantum reservoir engineering can be realized in various setups, employing parametric coupling of a cooling agent with the target systems. We also discuss using non-thermal baths to simulate ultra-high temperature thermal baths for cooling.