Preparation of nonclassical states in cavities with a moving mirror

We describe how a quantum system composed of a cavity field interacting with a movable mirror can be utilized to generate a large variety of nonclassical states of both the cavity field and the mirror. First we consider state preparation of the cavity field. The system dynamics will prepare a single mode of the cavity field in a multicomponent Schr\"odinger-cat state, in a similar manner to that in a Kerr medium. In addition, when two or more cavity modes interact with the mirror, they can be prepared in an entangled state, which may be regarded as a multimode generalization of the even and odd coherent states. We show also that near-number states of a single mode may be prepared by performing a measurement of the position of the mirror. Second we consider state preparation of the mirror and show that this macroscopic object may be placed in a Schr\"odinger-cat-like state by a quadrature measurement of the light field. In addition, we examine the effect of the damping of the motion of the mirror on the field states inside the cavity and compare this with the effect of cavity field damping.