Normal-mode splitting is the most evident signature of strong coupling between two interacting subsystems. It occurs when two subsystems exchange energy between themselves faster than they dissipate it to the environment. Here we experimentally show that a weakly coupled optomechanical system at room temperature can manifest normal-mode splitting when the pump field fluctuations are antisquashed by a phase-sensitive feedback loop operating close to its instability threshold. Under these conditions the optical cavity exhibits an effectively reduced decay rate, so that the system is effectively promoted to the strong coupling regime.

We realise a feedback-controlled optical Fabry-Pérot cavity in which the transmitted cavity output is used to modulate the input amplitude fluctuations. The resulting phase-dependent fluctuations of the in-loop optical field, which may be either sub-shot or super-shot noise, can be engineered to favourably affect the optomechanical interaction with a nanomechanical membrane placed within the cavity. Here we show that in the super-shot-noise regime ('anti-squashed light') the in-loop field has a strongly reduced effective cavity linewidth, corresponding to an increased optomechanical cooperativity. In this regime, feedback improves the simultaneous resolved-sideband cooling of two nearly degenerate membrane mechanical modes by one order of magnitude.

We realize a phase-sensitive closed-loop control scheme to engineer the fluctuations of the pump field which drives an optomechanical system and show that the corresponding cooling dynamics can be significantly improved. In particular, operating in the counterintuitive "antisquashing" regime of positive feedback and increased field fluctuations, sideband cooling of a nanomechanical membrane within an optical cavity can be improved by 7.5 dB with respect to the case without feedback. Close to the quantum regime of reduced thermal noise, such feedback-controlled light would allow going well below the quantum backaction cooling limit.