Schrödinger cat state of a 16μg mechanical oscillator: Part II

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 second talk presents experimental results on the preparation of a bulk acoustic wave resonator in Schrödinger cat states with different amplitudes and phases. Moreover, we investigate the decoherence dynamics of such states by observing the disappearance of Wigner negativities. Our results can find applications in continuous variable quantum information processing and in fundamental investigations of quantum mechanics in massive systems.