The Les Houches Summer School in August 2015 covered the emerging fields of cavity optomechanics and quantum nanomechanics. Optomechanics is flourishing and its concepts and techniques are now applied to a wide range of topics. Modern quantum optomechanics was born in the late 1970s in the framework of gravitational wave interferometry, with an initial focus on the quantum limits of displacement measurements. Carlton Caves, Vladimir Braginsky, and others realized that the sensitivity of the anticipated large-scale gravitational-wave interferometers (GWI) was fundamentally limited by the quantum fluctuations of the measurement laser beam. After tremendous experimental progress, the sensitivity of the upcoming next generation of GWI will effectively be limited by quantum noise. In this way, quantum-optomechanical effects will directly affect the operation of what is arguably the world's most impressive precision experiment. However, optomechanics has also gained a life of its own with a focus on the quantum aspects of moving mirrors. Laser light can be used to cool mechanical resonators well below the temperature of its environment. After proof-of-principle demonstrations of this cooling in 2006, a number of systems were used as the field gradually merged with its condensed matter cousin (nanomechanical systems) to try to reach the mechanical quantum ground state, eventually demonstrated in 2010 by pure cryogenic techniques and just one year later by a combination of cryogenic and radiation-pressure cooling. The book covers all aspects -- historical, theoretical, experimental -- of the field, with its applications to quantum measurement, foundations of quantum mechanics and quantum information. It is an essential read for any new researcher in the field.

Written by leading experimentalist Warwick P. Bowen and prominent theoretician Gerard J. Milburn, Quantum Optomechanics discusses modern developments in this novel field from experimental and theoretical standpoints. The authors share their insight on a range of important topics, including optomechanical cooling and entanglement; quantum limits on

This book is a thoroughly modern and highly pedagogical graduate-level introduction to quantum optics, a subject which has witnessed stunning developments in recent years and has come to occupy a central role in the 'second quantum revolution'. The reader is invited to explore the fundamental role that quantum optics plays in the control and manipulation of quantum systems, leading to ultracold atoms, circuit QED, quantum information science, quantum optomechanics, and quantum metrology. The building blocks of the subject are presented in a sequential fashion, starting from the simplest physical situations before moving to increasingly complicated ones. This pedagogically appealing approach leads to quantum entanglement and measurement theory being introduced early on and before more specialized topics such as cavity QED or laser cooling. The final chapter illustrates the power of scientific cross-fertilization by surveying cutting-edge applications of quantum optics and optomechanics in gravitational wave detection, tests of fundamental physics, searches for dark matter, geophysical monitoring, and ultraprecise clocks. Complete with worked examples and exercises, this book provides the reader with enough background knowledge and understanding to follow the current journal literature and begin producing their own original research.

Quantum effects in macroscopic systems have long been a fascination for researchers. Over the past decade mechanical oscillators have emerged as a leading system of choice for many such experiments. The work reported in this thesis investigates the effects of the radiation-pressure force of light on macroscopic mechanical structures. The basic system studied is a mechanical oscillator that is highly reflective and part of an optical resonator. It interacts with the optical cavity mode via the radiation-pressure force. Both the dynamics of the mechanical oscillation and the properties of the light field are modified through this interaction. The experiments use quantum optical tools (such as homodyning and down-conversion) with the goal of ultimately showing quantum behavior of the mechanical center of mass motion. Of particular value are the detailed descriptions of several novel experiments that pave the way towards this goal and are already shaping the field of quantum optomechanics, in particular optomechanical laser cooling and strong optomechanical coupling.

During the last few years cavity-optomechanics has emerged as a new field of research. This highly interdisciplinary field studies the interaction between micro and nano mechanical systems and light. Possible applications range from novel high-bandwidth mechanical sensing devices through the generation of squeezed optical or mechanical states to even tests of quantum theory itself. This is one of the first books in this relatively young field. It is aimed at scientists, engineers and students who want to obtain a concise introduction to the state of the art in the field of cavity optomechanics. It is valuable to researchers in nano science, quantum optics, quantum information, gravitational wave detection and other cutting edge fields. Possible applications include biological sensing, frequency comb applications, silicon photonics etc. The technical content will be accessible to those who have familiarity with basic undergraduate physics.

This volume, number 109 of the Les Houches Summer School series, presents the lectures held in August 2017 on the subject of turbulent flows in climate dynamics. Leading scientists in the fields of climate dynamics, atmosphere and ocean dynamics, geophysical fluid dynamics, physics and non-linear sciences present their views on this fast growing and interdisciplinary field of research, by venturing upon fundamental problems of atmospheric convection, clouds, large scale circulation, and predictability. Climate is controlled by turbulent flows. Turbulent motions are responsible for the bulk of the transport of energy, momentum, and water vapor in the atmosphere, which determine the distribution of temperature, winds, and precipitation on Earth. The aim of this book is to survey what is known about how turbulent flows control climate, what role they may play in climate change, and to outline where progress in this important area can be expected, given today's computational and observational capabilities. This book reviews the state-of-the-art developments in this field and provides an essential background to future studies. All chapters are written from a pedagogical perspective, making the book accessible to masters and PhD students and all researchers wishing to enter this field.

The topic of the CVIII session of the Ecole de Physique des Houches, held in July 2017, was Effective Field Theory in Particle Physics and Cosmology. Effective Field Theory (EFT) is a general method for describing quantum systems with multiple length scales in a tractable fashion. It allows to perform precise calculations in established models (such as the Standard Models of particle physics and cosmology), as well as to concisely parametrise possible effects from physics beyond the Standard Models. The goal of this school was to offer a broad introduction to the foundations and modern applications of Effective Field Theory in many of its incarnations. This is all the more important as there are preciously few textbooks covering the subject, none of them in a complete way. In this book, the lecturers present the concepts in a pedagogical way so that readers can adapt some of the latest developments to their own problems. The chapters cover almost all the lectures given at the school and will serve as an introduction to the topic and as a reference manual to students and researchers.

This volume contains lectures delivered at the Les Houches Summer School 'Integrability: from statistical systems to gauge theory' held in June 2016. The School was focussed on applications of integrability to supersymmetric gauge and string theory, a subject of high and increasing interest in the mathematical and theoretical physics communities over the past decade. Relevant background material was also covered, with lecture series introducing the main concepts and techniques relevant to modern approaches to integrability, conformal field theory, scattering amplitudes, and gauge/string duality. The book will be useful not only to those working directly on integrablility in string and guage theories, but also to researchers in related areas of condensed matter physics and statistical mechanics.

This book gathers the lecture notes of courses given at Session CVII of the summer school in physics, entitled “Current Trends in Atomic Physics” and held in July, 2016 in Les Houches, France. Atomic physics provides a paradigm for exploring few-body quantum systems with unparalleled control. In recent years, this ability has been applied in diverse areas including condensed matter physics, high energy physics, chemistry and ultra-fast phenomena as well as foundational aspects of quantum physics. This book addresses these topics by presenting developments and current trends via a series of tutorials and lectures presented by international leading investigators.

This book presents the basics and applications of superconducting devices in quantum optics. Over the past decade, superconducting devices have risen to prominence in the arena of quantum optics and quantum information processing. Superconducting detectors provide unparalleled performance for the detection of infrared photons in quantum cryptography, enable fundamental advances in quantum optics, and provide a direct route to on-chip optical quantum information processing. Superconducting circuits based on Josephson junctions provide a blueprint for scalable quantum information processing as well as opening up a new regime for quantum optics at microwave wavelengths. The new field of quantum acoustics allows the state of a superconducting qubit to be transmitted as a phonon excitation. This volume, edited by two leading researchers, provides a timely compilation of contributions from top groups worldwide across this dynamic field, anticipating future advances in this domain.