title: Proposal for an optomechanical microwave sensor at the subphoton level.
abstract: Because of their low energy content, microwave signals at the single-photon level are extremely challenging to measure. Guided by recent progress in single-photon optomechanics and hybrid optomechanical systems, we propose a multimode optomechanical transducer that can detect intensities significantly below the single-photon level via adiabatic transfer of the microwave signal to the optical frequency domain where the measurement is then performed. The influence of intrinsic quantum and thermal fluctuations is also discussed.
authors.affiliation: Quantum Institute for Light and Atoms, State Key Laboratory of Precision Spectroscopy, Department of Physics, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200241, China.|B2 Institute, Department of Physics and College of Optical Sciences, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona 85721, USA.
authors.forename: Keye
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: B2 Institute, Department of Physics and College of Optical Sciences, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona 85721, USA.
authors.forename: Francesco
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Bariani
authors.affiliation: B2 Institute, Department of Physics and College of Optical Sciences, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona 85721, USA.|Department of Physics, Hangzhou Normal University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang 310036, China.
authors.forename: Ying
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Dong
authors.affiliation: Quantum Institute for Light and Atoms, State Key Laboratory of Precision Spectroscopy, Department of Physics, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200241, China.
authors.forename: Weiping
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: B2 Institute, Department of Physics and College of Optical Sciences, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona 85721, USA.
authors.forename: Pierre
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Meystre