Classical and quantum dynamics of a trapped ion coupled to a charged nanowire

Abstract

We study theoretically the mechanical drive of a trapped ultracold ion by a charged nanowire through their mutual Coulomb interaction. We characterize the perturbation of the trapping potential for the ion by the nanowire and discuss the parameters determining the dynamics of the ion under the action of the nanooscillator. We explore the classical dynamics as well as motional quantum states of the ion which can be generated and manipulated with the resonant drive of the nanowire and the effects of anharmonicities of the ion-trap potential on the system. Our modelling indicates that unusual quantum states of the ion motion can be generated with this approach and that sympathetic cooling and quantum entanglement can be realised when both subsystems operate in the quantum regime. The present ion-mechanical hybrid system might prove interesting as a new quantum device, for quantum sensing experiments, for spectroscopy and for mass spectrometry.

Mathieu-Hill Equation Stability Analysis for Trapped Ions. Anharmonic Corrections for Nonlinear Electrodynamic Traps

“…The Paul trap apparatus [in case of both 2D linear ion traps (LIT) and 3D versions] has been developed and refined for high finesse quantum engineering experiments, high precision spectroscopy [40,41], along with classical mass spectrometry (MS) [42][43][44][45][46][47] or chemical analysis [48], including the detection of aerosols and chemical warfare [49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57]. Besides, ion traps also enable exceptional control in preparing and manipulating atomic quantum states [58][59][60][61][62][63], which is why their wide area of applications also includes quantum logic [64][65][66][67][68], quantum sensing [69][70][71][72], quantum metrology [73,74] and even time fractals [75] or time crystals [76]. To these one adds high accuracy optical frequency standards [77][78][79][80], which are amongst the most sensitive quantum sensors [81,82] used to perform searches for physics beyond the Standard Model (BSM)…”

“…In case of 2D traps, motional coupling between axial and radial directions is reported [97,98]. Deviations of the trap potential from an ideal quadrupole lead to parasitic effects [99] and impose limitations on the number of ions that can be confined, and implicitly on the signal to noise ratio (SNR) [70,100,101]. The effects produced by the presence of higher order anharmonic terms [65] of the trapping potential (for linear strings of trapped ions) is investigated in [102], where two distinct effects are emphasized: a) an alteration of the oscillation frequencies and amplitudes of the ions' normal modes of vibration in case of many-ion crystals, because each ion experiences a different curvature in the trap potential, along with b) significant amplitude-dependent shifts of the normal-mode frequencies, triggered by increased anharmonicity or higher excitation amplitude.…”

Investigations on Dynamical Stability in 3D Quadrupole Ion Traps

“…[32]. Classical dynamics and dynamical quantum states of an ion are investigated in [33], considering the effects of the higher order terms of the trap potential. On the other hand, the method suggested in [34] can be employed to characterize ion dynamics in 2D and 3D QIT traps.…”

Quasienergy operators and generalized squeezed states for systems of trapped ions

“…The term of squeezed states has been introduced in [112]. Coherent and squeezed states for trapped ions have found applications in QIP [37,47], quantum metrology and quantum sensing [46,89,95,113,114], optical clocks [55].…”

“…Recent advances in quantum optics enable trapping of single particles or atoms [19,[37][38][39], while progress in quantum engineering techniques allows preparing these particles in well-defined quantum states [40,41], under conditions of accurate control of the interaction between a quantum system (trapped ions) and the environment [42][43][44][45][46][47][48]. Besides quantum optics CS are of large interest, starting from pure mathematical topics up to physical applications such as quantum gravity [49,50].…”