Gyroscopically Stabilized Quantum Spin Rotors

Physical Review Letters, vol. 136, pp. 073604

Abstract

Recent experiments demonstrate all-electric spinning of levitated nanodiamonds with embedded nitrogen-vacancy spins. Here, we argue that such gyroscopically stabilized spin rotors offer a promising platform for probing and exploiting quantum spin-rotation coupling of particles hosting a single spin degree of freedom. Specifically, we derive the effective Hamiltonian describing how an embedded spin affects the rotation of rapidly revolving quantum rotors due to the Einstein-de Haas and Barnett effects, which we use to devise experimental protocols for observing this coupling in state-of-the-art experiments. This will open the door for future exploitations of quantum spin rotors for superposition experiments with massive objects.

Authors 4

1. Vanessa Wachter Aachen

   Universität Ulm · RWTH Aachen University

   Affiliation as printed

   RWTH Aachen University

   Ulm University

2. Silvia Viola Kusminskiy Aachen

   Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light · RWTH Aachen University

   Affiliation as printed

   Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light

   RWTH Aachen University

3. Gabriel Hetet

   École Normale Supérieure - PSL · Laboratoire de Physique de l'Ecole Normale Supérieure

   Affiliation as printed

   Laboratoire de Physique de l’École Normale Supérieure

4. Benjamin A. Stickler

   Universität Ulm

   Affiliation as printed

   Ulm University