Feedback cooling of the normal modes of a massive electromechanical system to submillikelvin temperature

Bibliographic citation A. Vinante, M. Bignotto, M. Bonaldi, M. Cerdonio, L. Conti, P. Falferi, N. Liguori, S. Longo, R. Mezzena, A. Ortolan, G. A. Prodi, F. Salemi, L. Taffarello, G. Vedovato, S. Vitale, J.P. Zendri, , "Feedback cooling of the normal modes of a massive electromechanical system to submillikelvin temperature" in PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS, v. 101, (2008), p. 033601-1-033601-5

Detail

Abstract: We apply a feedback cooling technique to simultaneously cool the three electromechanical normal modes of the ton-scale resonant-bar gravitational wave detector AURIGA. The measuring system is based on a dc superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) amplifier, and the feedback cooling is applied electronically to the input circuit of the SQUID. Starting from a bath temperature of 4.2 K, we achieve a minimum temperature of 0.17 mK for the coolest normal mode. The same technique, implemented in a dedicated experiment at subkelvin bath temperature and with a quantum limited SQUID, could allow to approach the quantum ground state of a kilogram-scale mechanical resonator.