Massive quantum superpositions using magneto-mechanics

Abstract

Macroscopic quantum superpositions of massive objects are deeply interesting as they have a number of potential applications ranging from the exploration of the interaction of gravity with quantum mechanics to quantum sensing, quantum simulation, and computation. In this letter, we propose two related schemes to prepare a spatial superposition of massive quantum oscillator systems with high Q-factor via a superposition of magnetic forces. In the first method, we propose a large spatial superposition of a levitated spherical magnet generated via magnetic forces applied by adjacent flux qubits. We find that in this method the spatial superposition extent ($Δz$) is independent of the size of the particle. In the second method, we propose a large spatial superposition of a magnetically levitated (using the Meissner effect) flux qubit, generated via driving the levitated qubit inductively. In both schemes, we show that ultra-large superpositions $Δz/δz_{\rm zpm}\sim 10^6$, are possible, where $δz_{\rm zpm}$ is the zero point motional extent.