Remote cooling of spin-ensembles through a spin-mechanical hybrid interface

Abstract We present a protocol for the ground-state cooling of a tripartite hybrid quantum system, in which a macroscopic oscillator acts as a mediator between a single-probe spin and a remote spin ensemble. In the presence of weak dispersive coupling between the spins and the oscillator, cooling of the oscillator and the ensemble spins can be achieved by exploiting the feedback from frequent measurements of the single-probe spin. We explore the parameter regimes necessary to cool the ensemble, the oscillator, or both to their thermal ground states. This novel cooling protocol shows that, even with only weak dispersive coupling, energy transfer-like effects can be obtained by simply manipulating the probe spin. These results not only contribute to the development of a practical solution for cooling/polarizing large spin ensembles but also provide a relatively simple means of tuning the dynamics of a hybrid system. The proposed protocol thus has broader implications for advancing various quantum technology applications, such as macroscopic quantum state generation and remote sensing.