Optomechanical systems show tremendous promise for high sensitivity sensingof forces and modification of mechanical properties via light. For example,similar to neutral atoms and trapped ions, laser cooling of mechanical motionby radiation pressure can take single mechanical modes to their ground state.Conventional optomechanical cooling is able to introduce additional dampingchannel to mechanical motion, while keeping its thermal noise at the samelevel, and as a consequence, the effective temperature of the mechanical modeis lowered. However, the ratio of temperature to quality factor remains roughlyconstant, preventing dramatic advances in quantum sensing using this approach.Here we propose an approach for simultaneously reducing the thermal load on amechanical resonator while improving its quality factor. In essence, we use theoptical interaction to dynamically modify the dominant damping mechanism,providing an optomechanically-induced effect analogous to a phononic band gap.The mechanical mode of interest is assumed to be weakly coupled to its heatbath but strongly coupled to a second mechanical mode, which is cooled byradiation pressure coupling to a red detuned cavity field. We also identify arealistic optomechanical design that has the potential to realize this novelcooling scheme.
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