基于腔光力学系统的量子热机研究

Micromation and integration are the main trend in the research of the machines in decades, which makes the scales of the machine enter into the mesoscopic regime and even close to the quantum regime. That has challenged the classical working principles of the machines. Especially in their power parts, the classical heat engines based on the theory of the classical thermodynamics may not work effectively, which makes the research on the quantum heat engine a necessity. However, in the theoretical research the models of the quantum heat engines are mostly based on the systems of prominent quantum properties, such as atoms, photons, and so on, aiming at exploring the foundations of thermodynamics from a quantum theory point of view. This research proposal is about the investigation of the theory of the quantum heat engine based on the cavity optomechanical system. Since on the one hand the development of cavity optomechanical coupling has enabled to achieve the quantum regime of mechanical systems in an experimental setting recently, which enables the research of quantum heat engine. On the other hand, the inherent mechanical features of cavity optomechanical system will perform good co-operations with the current machines. Those two points make the cavity optomechanical system be a well research platform for quantum heat engine that balances the theoretical study with the practical application. We plan to design various schemes of quantum heat engines with cavity optomechanical system and investigate their quantum thermodynamics. Besides, we will make full use of the research advantage of cavity optomechanics in precise measurement to explore the possibilities for quantum nondemolition measurement of thermodynamic performance of quantum heat engine.

不断集成化和微型化的发展趋势使得机械装置的尺度逼近介观甚至于微观量子区域，这对传统机械的工作原理，尤其是基于经典热力学原理的机械动力部分提出了挑战。经典热机理论在量子区域将面对原理性的困难，这在应用层面促使量子热机的研发。然而当下量子热机的研究大多以探索量子热力学基础理论为目的，基于原子、光子等量子特征十分显著而与经典热机结构差异较大的系统。申请人希望开展以腔光力学系统为平台的量子热机理论研究。一方面近来量子腔光力学的实验进展使得介观尺度的该系统就足以开展量子热力学的研究；另一方面该系统本身的机械结构特征使得以它为基础的量子热机能与现有的机械装置更好地结合。这些性质使得该系统成为一个能够兼顾理论与应用要求的量子热机的研究平台。除了设计基于该系统的各种类型的量子热机及分析其量子热力学性质外，申请人还将结合该系统在精密测量方面的研究优势，探索对量子热机功效进行量子测量的方案。

本项目以量子腔光力学系统为平台，设计出多种不同形式量子热机的理论模型。在此基础之上研究了光力学系统的量子关联特性和量子测量反作用效应对热机性能的影响。解决的关键科学问题有：揭示了光子声子间的量子关联可以提高腔光力学量子热机的功热转换效率；理论估计了色散型和耗散型两种常见的光学量子测量方法对光力学量子热机输出功的影响，并在此基础之上设计出了量子非破坏性的测量方案。此外还将这些研究成果拓展到了相对论性量子系统中。本项目的研究成果大多以项目主持人为第一作者，所在国内大学为第一单位，发表在国际一流物理研究刊物上，共12篇。其中在物理顶级期刊Physical Review Letters上2篇，一流期刊Physical Review A上5篇，在国内物理学一流期刊SCIENCE CHINA Physics, Mechanics & Astronomy上1篇。