Nonperturbative optomechanics with thin, weakly reflective intracavity dielectrics
Abstract
Levitated dielectric sensors are often treated as perturbative probes of a pre-existing optical field. We show that this picture fails for a novel sensor geometry: a dielectric plate whose transverse extent captures the full optical mode. Even an optically thin sensor with modest refractive index can heavily restructure the intracavity fields, effectively partitioning a cavity into two subcavities with substantial cross-coupling and producing new optical resonances and trapping sites with properties which deviate from the standard intuition. Conventional perturbative expressions for the cavity frequency shift and optomechanical coupling depart from the exact solution at thicknesses as small as ∼λ/(10n). Furthermore, cavity locking decreases the coupling and increases the trap stiffness by orders of magnitude, and the coupled subcavity structure permits appreciable optical cooling at zero detuning, a distinct behavior unique to this nonperturbative regime. These effects, sharing a common origin, establish a distinct regime of cavity optomechanics in which the sensor is no longer merely a probe of the cavity field, but an element that helps define it.
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BibTeX
@misc{laeuger2026nonperturbative,
title = {{Nonperturbative optomechanics with thin, weakly reflective intracavity dielectrics}},
author = {Andrew Laeuger and Nancy Aggarwal},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2610.15749},
eprint = {2610.15749},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.15749},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Nonperturbative optomechanics with thin, weakly reflective intracavity dielectrics
AU - Andrew Laeuger
AU - Nancy Aggarwal
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/11
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2610.15749
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.15749
AB - Levitated dielectric sensors are often treated as perturbative probes of a pre-existing optical field. We show that this picture fails for a novel sensor geometry: a dielectric plate whose transverse extent captures the full optical mode. Even an optically thin sensor with modest refractive index can heavily restructure the intracavity fields, effectively partitioning a cavity into two subcavities with substantial cross-coupling and producing new optical resonances and trapping sites with properties which deviate from the standard intuition. Conventional perturbative expressions for the cavity frequency shift and optomechanical coupling depart from the exact solution at thicknesses as small as ∼λ/(10n). Furthermore, cavity locking decreases the coupling and increases the trap stiffness by orders of magnitude, and the coupled subcavity structure permits appreciable optical cooling at zero detuning, a distinct behavior unique to this nonperturbative regime. These effects, sharing a common origin, establish a distinct regime of cavity optomechanics in which the sensor is no longer merely a probe of the cavity field, but an element that helps define it.
ER -