Harmonic oscillators belong to the most fundamental concepts in physics and are central to many current research fields such as circuit QED, cavity optomechanics, and photon pressure systems. Here, we engineer a microwave mode in a superconducting LC circuit that mimics the dynamics of a negative mass oscillator, and couple it via photon pressure to a second low-frequency circuit. We demonstrate that the effective negative mass dynamics lead to an inversion of dynamical backaction and to sideband cooling of the low-frequency circuit by a blue-detuned pump field, which can be intuitively understood by the inverted energy ladder of a negative mass oscillator.@en

Photon-pressure coupling between two superconducting circuits is a promising platform for investigating radiation-pressure coupling in distinct parameter regimes and for the development of radio-frequency (RF) quantum photonics and quantum-limited RF sensing. Here, we implement photon-pressure coupling between two superconducting circuits, one of which can be operated as a parametric amplifier. We demonstrate a Kerr-based enhancement of the photon-pressure single-photon coupling rate and an increase of the cooperativity by one order of magnitude in the amplifier regime. In addition, we observe that the intracavity amplification reduces the measurement imprecision of RF signal detection. Last, we demonstrate that RF mode sideband cooling is unexpectedly not limited to the effective amplifier mode temperature arising from quantum noise amplification, which we interpret in the context of nonreciprocal heat transfer between the two circuits. Our results demonstrate how Kerr amplification can be used as resource for enhanced photon-pressure systems and Kerr cavity optomechanics.

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Cavity optomechanics has achieved groundbreaking control and detection of mechanical oscillators, based on their coupling to linear electromagnetic modes. Recently, however, there is increasing interest in cavity nonlinearities as resource in radiation-pressure interacting systems. Here, we present a flux-mediated optomechanical device combining a nonlinear superconducting quantum interference cavity with a mechanical nanobeam. We demonstrate how the Kerr nonlinearity of the circuit can be used to enhance the device performance by suppressing cavity frequency noise, and for a counter-intuitive sideband-cooling scheme based on intracavity four-wave-mixing. With a large single-photon coupling rate of up to g₀ = 2π ⋅ 3.6 kHz and a high mechanical quality factor Q_m ≈ 4 ⋅ 10⁵, we achieve an effective four-wave cooperativity of Cfw>100 and demonstrate four-wave cooling of the mechanical oscillator close to its quantum groundstate. Our results advance the recently developed platform of flux-mediated optomechanics and demonstrate how cavity Kerr nonlinearities can be utilized in cavity optomechanics.

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Nonlinear Josephson circuits play a crucial role in the growing landscape of quantum information and technologies. The typical circuits studied in this field consist of qubits, whose anharmonicity is much larger than their linewidth, and also of parametric amplifiers, which are engineered with linewidths of tens of MHz or more. The regime of small anharmonicity but also narrow linewidth, corresponding to the dynamics of a high-Q Duffing oscillator, has not been extensively explored using Josephson cavities. Here, we use two-tone spectroscopy to study the susceptibility of a strongly driven high-Q Josephson microwave cavity. Under blue-detuned driving, we observe a shift of the cavity susceptibility, analogous to the AC Stark effect in atomic physics. When applying a strong red-detuned drive, we observe the appearance of an additional idler mode above the bifurcation threshold with net external gain. Strong driving of the circuit leads to the appearance of two exceptional points and a level attraction between the quasimodes of the driven cavity. Our results provide insights on the physics of driven nonlinear Josephson resonators and form a starting point for exploring topological physics in strongly-driven Kerr oscillators.

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