Static Casimir effect induced optical chaos in an optomechanical system

Abstract

Abstract Static Casimir effect as one of the most interesting purely quantum effects is very general and may bring about novel physical phenomena and find applications in various fields of physics. Here, we investigate theoretically the generation of optical chaos induced by the static Casimir effect in an optomechanical system. We show that the dynamic behavior of the cavity field experiences the conversion from period to chaos motion under the condition of properly adjusting the static Casimir effect, even if the driven optical fields are comparatively weak. Furthermore, our numerical calculation with experimentally attainable parameters also shows that compared with the standard bare optomechanical system, the optical threshold of chaos is reduced about one order when the static Casimir effect is applied. Beyond the significance in broadening the scope of cavity optomechanics, this finding provides a different perspective to the study of optical chaos and lays a foundation for using static Casimir effect to comprehend the nonlinear characteristics of the optomechanical system. In particular, our results may find potential applications in chaos-based communication.