Carlton Caves: Quantum limits on estimating a classical force

Carlton Caves, University of New Mexico

Abstract

Quantum limits on sensing a time-dependent classical force have long
been of interest for gravitational-wave detection and will be
relevant to the sensitivity of the upgraded version of the Laser
Interferometer Gravitational Observatory. Such limits are now
becoming important at an entirely different scale, in the rapidly
emerging field of optomechanics for nanoscale mechanical resonators.
I will review how the standard quantum limit for force detection
arises and discuss how to overcome it using ideas that have been
developed over the last thirty years for gravitational-wave detection
and using a new framework that is now emerging from quantum
information science.