Figure 9

Figure 9: Schematic view of light modulation by perfectly reflecting mirror motion. An initially monochromatic laser field Ein(t) with frequency ω = 2 πc∕λ 0 0 gets reflected from the mirror that commits slow (compared to optical oscillations) motion x(t) (blue line) under the action of external force G. Reflected the light wave phase is modulated by the mechanical motion so that the spectrum of the outgoing field Eout(ω) contains two sidebands carrying all the information about the mirror motion. The left panel shows the spectral representation of the initial monochromatic incident light wave (upper plot), the mirror mechanical motion amplitude spectrum (middle plot) and the spectrum of the phase-modulated by the mirror motion, reflected light wave (lower plot).