Quantum-nondemolition measurement of photon number using radiation pressure

Abstract
We propose a quantum-nondemolition measurement of the amplitude quadrature and the photon-number statistics by using the effect of radiation pressure on a freely suspended mirror. We propose to measure the momentum fluctuations of the mirror which will give us a readout of the amplitude quadrature fluctuations. The scheme we propose is able to avoid the back-action noise leaving the state of the field after the measurement practically undegraded.