Experimental exploration of the optomechanical attractor diagram and its dynamics

We demonstrate experimental exploration of the attractor diagram of an optomechanical system where the optical forces compensate for the mechanical losses. In this case stable self-induced oscillations occur but only for specific mirror amplitudes and laser detunings. We demonstrate that we can amplify the mechanical mode to an amplitude 500 times larger than the thermal amplitude at 300 K. The lack of unstable or chaotic motion allows us to manipulate our system into a nontrivial steady state and explore the dynamics of self-induced oscillations in great detail.