Jack Harris
Yale University
Tuesday, November 19, 2019
5:15 p.m. — room Jaures (29 rue d’Ulm)
Searching for quantum effects in macroscopic objects typically requires low temperatures, low optical and mechanical loss, and high-precision readout. Superfluid helium offers many advantages in these regards. I will describe two experiments that use superfluid optomechanical devices. In the first, superfluid fills a Fabry-Perot optical cavity. The cavity is used to monitor the quantum fluctuations of the superfluid’s acoustic modes. We find that this system is potentially suitable for single photon/phonon detection schemes, and so may provide a route to non-Gaussian quantum states in massive objects. The second experiment uses magnetic levitation to suspend a mm-scale drop of superfluid in vacuum. I will describe preliminary measurements of the drops’ formation, trapping, and evaporative cooling, as well as of their mechanical resonances and optical resonances.
RECRUTEMENT ACCES DIRECT
Le département de physique
Fête de la Science 2018 