Optomechanical generation of a mechanical catlike state by phonon subtraction

Abstract: We propose a scheme to prepare a macroscopic mechanical oscillator in a catlike state, close to a coherent state superposition. The mechanical oscillator, coupled by radiation-pressure interaction to a field in an optical cavity, is first prepared close to a squeezed vacuum state using a reservoir engineering technique. The system is then probed using a short optical pulse tuned to the lower motional sideband of the cavity resonance, realizing a photon-phonon swap interaction. A photon number measurement of the photons emerging from the cavity then conditions a phonon-subtracted catlike state with a negative Wigner distribution exhibiting separated peaks and multiple interference fringes. We show that this scheme is feasible using state-of-the-art photonic crystal optomechanical system.