Schrödinger cat states of a 16μg mechanical oscillator: Part I

While the validity of superposition principle is routinely validated for microscopic systems, it is still unclear why we do not observe macroscopic objects to be in superpositions of states that can be distinguished by some classical property. In our experiments, we demonstrate the preparation of a mechanical resonator with an effective mass of 16ug in Schrodinger cat states of motion, where the constituent atoms oscillate in a superposition of two opposite phases. This first talk describes the bulk acoustic wave resonator device used in our experiments and the circuit quantum acoustodynamics (cQAD) toolbox we have developed. By using the resonant Jaynes-Cummings interaction between the resonator mode and a superconducting qubit, we are able to demonstrate the evolution of an initial mechanical coherent state into a Schrödinger cat state.