Controllable generation of photons and phonons in a coupled Bose–Einstein condensate-optomechanical cavity via the parametric dynamical Casimir effect

Abstract We theoretically propose and investigate a feasible experimental scheme for the realization of the dynamical Casimir effect (DCE) in a hybrid optomechanical cavity with a moving end mirror containing an interacting cigar-shaped Bose–Einstein condensate (BEC). We show that in the red-detuned regime of cavity optomechanics together with the weak optomechanical coupling limit by coherent modulation of the s-wave scattering frequency of the BEC and the mechanical spring coefficient of the mechanical oscillator (MO), the mechanical and atomic quantum vacuum fluctuations are parametrically amplified, which consequently lead to the generation of the mechanical/Bogoliubov-type Casimir phonons. Interestingly, in the coherent regime corresponding to the case of largely different optomechanical coupling strengths of the cavity field to the BEC and the MO, or equivalently largely different cooperativities, one can generate a large number of Casimir photons due to the amplification of the intracavity vacuum fluctuations induced by the time modulations of the BEC and the MO. The number of generated Casimir particles are externally controllable by the cooperativities, and the modulation amplitudes of the atomic collisions rate and the mechanical spring coefficient.