Workshop: Nanomechanical Systems at Low Temperatures

Workshop on Cold Nano-and Micro Mechanics: Thursday 14th August

Organisers: A Armour, J Owers-Bradley, J Parpia

LATEST PROGRAMME SCHEDULE

This workshop will focus on topics relating to mechanical resonators at low temperatures such as cooling, high sensitivity displacement detection, and factors that affect dissipation with an emphasis on quantum effects.

The workshop session will be preceded by two morning plenary talks one by Keith Schwab focusing on the prospect for experiments using microwave pumps to cool nano-mechanical devices to the quantum ground state. The other by Markus Aspelmeyer will be on the entanglement between mechanical motion of a high Q opto-mechanical resonator and quantum optical fields in a high finesse optical cavity.

The workshop will take place during the afternoon with a panel of speakers and a discussion session. The panel members are:

• Livia Conti
• Eyal Buks
• Miles Blencowe

To provide a focus for discussions, panelists have been asked to address their presentations to one or more of the questions:

1. How close are we to observing the ground state in mechanical resonators?
2. What are the limits to displacement sensing?
3. What limits thermalization in mechanical resonators?
4. What are the main contributions to dissipation in nanostructures at low temperatures?
5. How do two level systems affect mechanical systems at low temperatures?

The discussion session will be very informal and we expect a lively interchange in which contributions from participants are likely to be extremely important. The discussions will continue over the poster session in the evening.

There is also the possibility of a further informal discussion session to be held on a second day that might (for example) focus on the use of audio resonators (eg quartz tuning forks, torsion pendulum) at low temperatures.