Optomechanical systems are rapidly becoming one of the most promising platforms for observing quantum behaviour, especially at the macroscopic level. Moreover, thanks to their state-of-the-art methods of fabrication, they may now enter regimes of non-linear interactions between their constituent mechanical and optical degrees of freedom. In this work, we show how this novel opportunity may serve to construct a new generation of optomechanical sensors. We consider the canonical optomechanical setup with the detection scheme being based on time-resolved counting of photons leaking from the cavity. By performing simulations and resorting to Bayesian inference, we demonstrate that the non-classical correlations of the detected photons may crucially enhance the sensor performance in real time. We believe that our work may stimulate a new direction in the design of such devices, while our methods apply also to other platforms exploiting non-linear light-matter interactions and photon detection.

中文翻译：

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利用连续光子计数的光机械传感器中的非线性效应

光机械系统正迅速成为观察量子行为的最有前途的平台之一，尤其是在宏观层面。此外，由于采用了最先进的制造方法，它们现在可以进入其组成的机械自由度和光学自由度之间的非线性相互作用状态。在这项工作中，我们展示了这一新机会如何用于构建新一代光机械传感器。我们考虑了典型的光机械装置，其检测方案基于从腔泄漏的光子的时间分辨计数。通过执行模拟和诉诸贝叶斯推理，我们证明了检测到的光子的非经典相关性可以实时提高传感器的性能。