Prospects of cooling a mechanical resonator with a transmon qubit in c-QED setup

Abstract

Hybrid devices based on the superconducting qubits have emerged as a promising platform for controlling the quantum states of macroscopic resonators. The nonlinearity added by a qubit can be a valuable resource for such control. Here we study a hybrid system consisting of a mechanical resonator longitudinally coupled to a transmon qubit. The qubit readout can be done by coupling to a readout mode like in c-QED setup. The coupling between the mechanical resonator and transmon qubit can be implemented by the modulation of the superconducting quantum interference device inductance. In such a tripartite system, we analyze the steady-state occupation of the mechanical mode when all three modes are dispersively coupled. We use the quantum noise and the Lindblad formalism to show that the sideband cooling of the mechanical mode to its ground state is achievable. We further experimentally demonstrate that measurements of the thermomechanical motion are possible in the dispersive limit, while maintaining a large coupling between qubit and mechanical mode. Our theoretical calculations suggest that single-photon strong coupling is within the experimental reach in such hybrid devices.