An Experimental Measurement of the Dynamical Casimir Effect in an Optical Cavity

Measurement of quantum vacuum fluctuations as predicted possible by Casimir in 1948 has very little experimental evidence. The first demonstration of the Dynamical Casimir Effect (DCE) was in 2011 using a superconducting quantum interference device. The effect has not been demonstrated in an optical cavity with a varying semiconductor mirror via laser pumping. Theory predicts that in a pumped optical cavity, DCE photon number increases exponentially in time. This may provide a unique opportunity for producing a high number of correlated photons with distinguishable spectra from the quantum vacuum. We can take advantage of the picosecond crystal phase transition time-scale of vanadium oxides acting as a mirror in the optical cavity with rapidly changing boundary conditions such that DCE photons are excited out of the vacuum. HBT interferometry and cryostat pump-probe spectroscopy can fully characterize DCE photons.