Accelerated ground-state cooling of an optomechanical resonator via shortcuts to adiabaticity

Ground-state cooling of mechanical resonators is an important task in quantum optomechanics because it is a necessary prerequisite for the creation, manipulation, and application of macroscopic mechanical coherence. Here, we propose a transient-state scheme to accelerate ground-state cooling of a mechanical resonator in a three-mode loop-coupled optomechanical system via shortcuts to adiabaticity (STA). We consider four kinds of coupling protocols and calculate the evolution of the mean phonon number of the mechanical resonator in both the adiabatic and STA cases. We verify that the ground-state cooling of the mechanical resonator can be achieved with the STA method in a much shorter period. The STA method can be generalized to accelerate other adiabatic processes in cavity optomechanics, and hence this work will open up a realm of fast optomechanical manipulations.

Automated summary

This study proposes a transient-state scheme to accelerate the ground-state cooling of a mechanical resonator. By using shortcuts to adiabaticity (STA), the cooling process can be achieved in a much shorter period. This work is significant for optomechanical manipulations.