Parametric generation of quadrature squeezing of mirrors in cavity optomechanics

Abstract

We propose a method to generate quadrature-squeezed states of a moving mirror in a Fabry-Perot cavity. This is achieved by exploiting the fact that when the cavity is driven by an external field with a large detuning, the moving mirror behaves as a parametric oscillator. We show that parametric resonance can be reached approximately by modulating the driving field amplitude at a frequency matching the frequency shift of the mirror. The parametric resonance leads to an efficient generation of squeezing, which is limited by the thermal noise of the environment.