Optomechanical Sensing for Subatomic and Astroparticle Physics

Session

Quantum Optomechanics & Particle Sensors

25 Sept 2026, 09:00

Conveners

Quantum Optomechanics & Particle Sensors

• Daniel Carney (Berkeley National Lab)

17. Quantum Invisible Particle Sensor (QuIPS): recoil reconstruction of nuclear decays in a trapped nanosphere for sterile-neutrino searches

Daniel Kodroff (Lawrence Berkeley National Lab)

25/09/2026, 09:00

The QuIPS (Quantum Invisible Particle Sensor) experiment is an optomechanical laser trap surrounded by active particle detectors. It is designed to reconstruct the full momenta of weak nuclear decay products by combining the recoil impulse imparted to a trapped nanosphere, read out at the standard quantum limit, with a direct measurement of the emitted beta particle. This enables searches for...

18. Thermal-limited motion and optomechanical control of a levitated superfluid drop

Jack Harris (Yale)

25/09/2026, 09:40

Objects that are levitated in vacuum and coupled to an optical cavity have been used as high-performance optomechanical systems in a number of experiments. However, levitated objects are difficult to cool cryogenically and are highly susceptible to external heat loads. Here we show that a levitated drop of superfluid helium can serve as an optomechanical system that maintains sub-Kelvin...