Entanglement of Macroscopic Test Masses and the Standard Quantum Limit in Laser Interferometry
H. Müller‐Ebhardt, H. Rehbein, Roman Schnabel, K. Danzmann, Yanbei Chen · Physical Review Letters · 2008
We show that the generation of entanglement of two heavily macroscopic mirrors is feasible with state of the art techniques of high-precision laser interferometry. The basis of such a demonstration would be a Michelson interferometer with suspended mirrors and simultaneous homodyne detections at both interferometer output ports. We present the connection between the generation of entanglement and the standard quantum limit (SQL) for a free mass. The SQL is a well-known reference limit in operating interferometers for gravitational-wave detection and provides a measure of when macroscopic entanglement can be observed in the presence of realistic decoherence processes.