Peter A. Ivanov

Colloquium: Trapped ions as quantum bits: Essential numerical tools

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 (this http URL).

Analytic approximations to the phase diagram of the Jaynes-Cummings-Hubbard model

We discuss analytic approximations to the ground-state phase diagram of the homogeneous JaynesCummings-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 calculations.

Efficient construction of three- and four-qubit quantum gates by global entangling gates

We present improved circuits for the Toffoli gate and the control-swap (Fredkin) gate using three and four global two-qubit gates, respectively. This is a nearly double speedup compared to the conventional circuits, which require five (for Toffoli) and seven (for Fredkin) local two-qubit gates. We apply the same approach to construct the conditional four-qubit phase gate by seven global two-qubit gates. We also present construction of the Toffoli and Fredkin gates with five global gates in systems with nearest-neighbor interactions. Our constructions do not employ ancilla qubits or ancilla internal states and are particularly well suited for ion qubits and for circuit QED systems, where the entangling operations can be implemented by global addressing.

Scalable quantum search using trapped ions

We propose a scalable implementation of Grovers quantum search algorithm in a trapped-ion quantum information processor. The system is initialized in an entangled Dicke state by using simple adiabatic techniques. The inversion-about-average and the oracle operators take the form of single off-resonant laser pulses, addressing, respectively, all and half of the ions in the trap. This is made possible by utilizing the physical symmetrie of the trapped-ion linear crystal. The physical realization of the algorithm represents a dramatic simplification: each logical iteration (oracle and inversion about average) requires only two physical interaction steps, in contrast to the large number of concatenated gates required by previous approaches. This does not only facilitate the implementation, but also increases the overall fidelity of the algorithm.

Quantum gate in the decoherence-free subspace of trapped-ion qubits

We propose a geometric phase gate in a decoherence-free subspace with trapped ions. The quantum information is encoded in the Zeeman sublevels of the ground state and two physical qubits to make up one logical qubit with ultra-long coherence time. Single- and two-qubit operations together with the transport and splitting of linear ion crystals allow for a robust and decoherence-free scalable quantum processor. For the ease of the phase gate realization we employ one Raman laser field on four ions simultaneously, i.e. no tight focus for addressing. The decoherence-free subspace is left neither during gate operations nor during the transport of quantum information.

High-precision force sensing using a single trapped ion.

We introduce quantum sensing schemes for measuring very weak forces with a single trapped ion. They use the spin-motional coupling induced by the laser-ion interaction to transfer the relevant force information to the spin-degree of freedom. Therefore, the force estimation is carried out simply by observing the Ramsey-type oscillations of the ion spin states. Three quantum probes are considered, which are represented by systems obeying the Jaynes-Cummings, quantum Rabi (in 1D) and Jahn-Teller (in 2D) models. By using dynamical decoupling schemes in the Jaynes-Cummings and Jahn-Teller models, our force sensing protocols can be made robust to the spin dephasing caused by the thermal and magnetic field fluctuations. In the quantum-Rabi probe, the residual spin-phonon coupling vanishes, which makes this sensing protocol naturally robust to thermally-induced spin dephasing. We show that the proposed techniques can be used to sense the axial and transverse components of the force with a sensitivity beyond the range, i.e. in the (xennonewton, 10−27). The Jahn-Teller protocol, in particular, can be used to implement a two-channel vector spectrum analyzer for measuring ultra-low voltages.

Quantum sensors assisted by spontaneous symmetry breaking for detecting very small forces

We propose a quantum sensing scheme for measuring weak forces based on a symmetry-breaking adiabatic transition in the quantum Rabi model. We show that the system described by the Rabi Hamiltonian can serve as a sensor for extremely weak forces with sensitivity beyond the yN

Proposal for trapped-ion emulation of the electric dipole moment of neutral relativistic particles

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Simple implementation of a quantum search with trapped ions

range. We propose an implementation of this sensing protocol using a single trapped ion. A major advantage of our scheme is that the force detection is performed by projective measurement of the population of the spin states at the end of the transition, instead of the far slower phonon number measurement used hitherto.

Spin-1/2 sub-dynamics nested in the quantum dynamics of two coupled qutrits

The electric dipole moments of various neutral elementary particles, such as neutron, neutrinos, certain hypothetical dark matter particles and others, are predicted to exist by the standard model of high energy physics and various extensions of it. However, the predicted values are beyond the present experimental capabilities. We propose to simulate and emulate the electric dipole moment of neutral relativistic particles and the ensuing effects in the presence of electrostatic field by emulation of an extended Dirac equation in ion traps.