Exceptional refrigeration of motions beyond their mass and temperature limitations

Abstract

Coaxing vibrations in the regimes of both large mass and high temperature into their motional quantum ground states is extremely challenging, because it requires an ultra-high optical power, which introduces extraneous excessive heating and intricate instabilities. Here we propose how to overcome these obstacles and cool vibrational networks by simply harnessing the power of an exceptional point (EP) induced in parity-time symmetric structures; and we reveal its exceptional cooling properties otherwise unachievable in conventional devices. In stark contrast to standard-cooling protocols, a three orders-of-magnitude amplification in net cooling rates arises from the EP-cooling mechanism, without which it vanishes. Remarkably, our EP cooling is nearly immune to both resonator mass and environmental temperature, and this overthrows the consensus that poor intrinsic factors and rugged extrinsic environment suppress cooling channels. Our study offers the possibility of isolating and engineering motional properties of large-mass and high-temperature objects for various applications in optical and acoustic sensing, gravimetry, and inertial navigation.