Southwest Quantum Information and Technology

Quantum control and simulation with large trapped-ion crystals

Presenting Author: John Bollinger, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Boulder
Contributing Author(s): Elena Jordan, Kevin Gilmore, Matt Affolter, Arghavan Safavi-Naini, Robert Lewis-Swan, Ana Maria Rey

I will describe efforts to improve the control of large, single-plane crystals of several hundred ions in Penning traps and employ these crystals for quantum sensing and quantum simulation. We isolate and control two internal levels or “spin” degree of freedom in each ion with standard techniques. Long-range interactions between the ions are generated through the application of spin-dependent optical-dipole forces that couple the spin and motional degrees of freedom of the ions. When this coupling is tuned to produce a coupling with a single motional mode (typically the center-of-mass mode), this system is described by the iconic Dicke model. Long-range Ising interactions and single-axis twisting are produced through this spin-motion coupling. To benchmark dynamics, we measure out-of-time-order correlations (OTOCs) that quantify the build-up of correlations and the spread of quantum information. We also employ spin-dependent optical dipole forces to sense center-of-mass motion that is small compared to the ground state zero-point fluctuations. This enables the detection of weak electric fields and may provide an opportunity to place limits on dark matter couplings due to particles such as axions and hidden photons that couple to ordinary matter through weak electric fields.

Read this article online: https://arxiv.org/abs/1807.03178, https://arxiv.org/abs/1608.08938, https://arxiv.org/abs/1703.05369

(Session 1 : Sunday from 8:30am - 9:15am)