Trapped, laser-cooled atoms and ions are quantum systems which can be experimentally controlled with an as yet unmatched degree of precision. Due to the control of the motion and the internal degrees of freedom, these quantum systems can be adequately described by a well known Hamiltonian. In this colloquium, we present powerful numerical tools for the optimization of the external control of the motional and internal states of trapped neutral atoms, explicitly applied to the case of trapped laser-cooled ions in a segmented ion-trap. We then delve into solving inverse problems, when optimizing trapping potentials for ions. Our presentation is complemented by a quantum mechanical treatment of the wavepacket dynamics of a trapped ion. Efficient numerical solvers for both time-independent and time-dependent problems are provided. Shaping the motional wavefunctions and optimizing a quantum gate is realized by the application of quantum optimal control techniques. The numerical methods presented can also be used to gain an intuitive understanding of quantum experiments with trapped ions by performing virtual simulated experiments on a personal computer. Code and executables are supplied as supplementary online material 1 .

This work explores the effect of phase relaxation on the population transfer efficiency in stimulated Raman adiabatic passage (STIRAP). The study is based on the Liouville equation, which is solved analytically in the adiabatic limit. The transfer efficiency of STIRAP is found to decrease exponentially with the dephasing rate; this effect is stronger for shorter pulse delays and weaker for larger delays, since the transition time is found to be inversely proportional to the pulse delay. Moreover, it is found that the transfer efficiency of STIRAP in the presence of dephasing does not depend on the peak Rabi frequencies at all, as long as they are sufficiently large to enforce adiabatic evolution; hence increasing the field intensity cannot reduce the dephasing losses. It is shown also that for any dephasing rate, the final populations of the initial state and the intermediate state are equal. For strong dephasing all three populations tend to 1 3 .

We present a novel system for the simulation of quantum phase transitions of collective internal qubit and phononic states with a linear crystal of trapped ions. The laser-ion interaction creates an energy gap in the excitation spectrum, which induces an effective phonon-phonon repulsion and a Jaynes-Cummings-Hubbard interaction. This system shows features equivalent to phase transitions of polaritons in coupled cavity arrays. Trapped ions allow for easy tunabilty of the hopping frequency by adjusting the axial trapping frequency, and the phonon-phonon repulsion via the laser detuning and intensity. We propose an experimental protocol to access all observables of the system, which allows one to obtain signatures of the quantum phase transitions even with a small number of ions.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

We propose a simple physical implementation of the quantum Householder reflection ͑QHR͒ M͑v͒ = I −2͉v͗͘v͉ in a quantum system of N degenerate states ͑forming a qunit͒ coupled simultaneously to an ancillary ͑excited͒ state by N resonant or nearly resonant pulsed external fields. We also introduce the generalized QHR M͑v ; ͒ = I + ͑e i −1͉͒v͗͘v͉, which can be produced in the same N-pod system when the fields are appropriately detuned from resonance with the excited state. We use these two operators as building blocks in constructing arbitrary preselected unitary transformations. We show that the most general U͑N͒ transformation can be factorized ͑and thereby produced͒ by either N − 1 standard QHRs and an N-dimensional phase gate, or N −1 generalized QHRs and a one-dimensional phase gate. Viewed mathematically, these QHR factorizations provide parametrizations of the U͑N͒ group. As an example, we propose a recipe for constructing the quantum Fourier transform ͑QFT͒ by at most N interaction steps. For example, the QFT requires a single QHR for N = 2, and only two QHRs for N = 3 and 4.

This work explores the effect of spontaneous emission on the population transfer efficiency in stimulated Raman adiabatic passage ͑STIRAP͒. The approach uses adiabatic elimination of weakly coupled density matrix elements in the Liouville equation, from which a very accurate analytic approximation is derived. The loss of population transfer efficiency is found to decrease exponentially with the factor ⍀ 0 2 / ⌫, where ⌫ is the spontaneous emission rate and ⍀ 0 is the peak Rabi frequency. The transfer efficiency increases with the pulse delay and reaches a steady value. For large pulse delay and large spontaneous emission rate STIRAP degenerates into optical pumping.

We show that the quasi-adiabatic evolution of a system governed by the Dicke Hamiltonian can be described in terms of a self-induced quantum many-body metrological protocol. This effect relies on the sensitivity of the ground state to a small symmetry-breaking perturbation at the quantum phase transition, that leads to the collapse of the wavefunciton into one of two possible ground states. The scaling of the final state properties with the number of atoms and with the intensity of the symmetry breaking field, can be interpreted in terms of the precession time of an effective quantum metrological protocol. We show that our ideas can be tested with spin-phonon interactions in trapped ion setups. Our work points to a classification of quantum phase transitions in terms of the capability of many-body quantum systems for parameter estimation.

The Jahn-Teller effect explains distortions and nondegenerate energy levels in molecular and solid-state physics via a coupling of effective spins to collective bosons. Here we propose and theoretically analyze the quantum simulation of a many-body Jahn-Teller model with linear ion crystals subjected to magnetic field gradients. We show that the system undergoes a quantum magnetic structural phase transition which leads to a reordering of particle positions and the formation of a spin-phonon quasicondensate in mesoscopic ion chains.

We discuss analytic approximations to the ground state phase diagram of the homogeneous Jaynes-Cummings-Hubbard (JCH) Hamiltonian with general short-range hopping. The JCH model describes e.g. radial phonon excitations of a linear chain of ions coupled to an external laser field tuned to the red motional sideband with Coulomb mediated hopping or an array of high-Q coupled cavities containing a two-level atom and photons. Specifically we consider the cases of a linear array of coupled cavities and a linear ion chain. We derive approximate analytic expressions for the boundaries between Mott-insulating and superfluid phases and give explicit expressions for the critical value of the hopping amplitude within the different approximation schemes. In the case of an array of cavities, which is represented by the standard JCH model we compare both approximations to numerical data from density-matrix renormalization group (DMRG) calculations.