Optomechanical many-body cooling to the ground state using frustration

Abstract

We show that the vibrations of an ion Coulomb crystal can be cooled to the zero-point motion through the optomechanical coupling with a high-finesse cavity. Cooling results from the interplay between coherent scattering of cavity photons by the ions, which dynamically modifies the vibrational spectrum, and cavity losses, that dissipate motional energy. The cooling mechanism we propose requires that the length scales of the crystal and the cavity are mismatched so that the system is intrinsically frustrated, leading to the formation of defects (kinks). When the pump is strong enough, the anti-Stokes sidebands of all vibrational modes can be simultaneously driven. These dynamics can be used to prepare ground-state chains of dozens of ions within tens of milliseconds in state-of-the-art experimental setups. In addition, we identify parameter regimes of the optomechanical interactions where individual localized modes can be selectively manipulated, and monitored through the light at the cavity output. These dynamics exemplify robust quantum reservoir engineering of strongly correlated mesoscopic systems and could find applications in optical cooling of solids.