Quantum Institute: Visitor Schedule

The Quantum Lunch is regularly held on Thursdays in the Theoretical Division Conference Room, TA-3, Building 123, Room 121.
For more information, contact Diego Dalvit.
To add your name to the Quantum Lunch email list, contact Ellie Vigil

Thursday, February 24, 2011
12:30 PM - 2:00 PM

Speaker: Chris Wipf (MIT)

Technical Host: Richard Hughes

TOPIC: Experimental quantum mechanics with gravitational wave detectors

Abstract
Quantum backaction will be a limiting noise source in the next generation of gravitational wave interferometers, now being built. Optical forces play an important role in this limit, determining both the classical dynamics and the quantum noise properties of the instrument. I will review the origins of the quantum limit in opto-mechanical displacement sensing, and recent progress in the field of quantum opto-mechanics. I will discuss experiments in the optical trapping and cooling of macroscopic mirrors, and prospects for observing quantum effects, including cooling to the ground state of motion, squeezing, and entanglement, in gravitational wave detectors and related systems.