Creating atom-nanoparticle quantum superpositions

Understand

A nanoscale object evidenced in a non-classical state of its centre of mass will hugely extend the boundaries of quantum mechanics.

• To obtain a practical scheme for the same, we exploit a hitherto unexplored coupled system: an atom and a nanoparticle coupled by an optical field.
• We show how to control the center-of-mass of a large $\sim500$nm nanoparticle using the internal state of the atom so as to create, as well as detect, nonclassical motional states of the nanoparticle.
• Specifically, we consider a setup based on a silica nanoparticle coupled to a Cesium atom and discuss a protocol for preparing and verifying a Schr\"{o}dinger-cat state of the nanoparticle that does no require cooling to the motional ground state.