Non-perturbative Dynamical Casimir Effect in Optomechanical Systems: Vacuum Casimir-Rabi Splittings

Understand

We study the dynamical Casimir effect using a fully quantum-mechanical description of both the cavity field and the oscillating mirror.

• We do not linearize the dynamics, nor do we adopt any parametric or perturbative approximation.
• By numerically diagonalizing the full optomechanical Hamiltonian, we show that the resonant generation of photons from the vacuum is determined by a ladder of mirror-field {\em vacuum Rabi splittings}.
• We find that vacuum emission can originate from the free evolution of an initial pure mechanical excited state, in analogy with the spontaneous emission from excited atoms.