Local probe of single phonon dynamics in warm ion crystals

Year: 2017

Authors: Abdelrahman A., Khosravani O., Gessner M., Buchleitner A., Breuer HP., Gorman D., Masuda R., Pruttivarasin T., Ramm M., Schindler P., Haffner H.

Autors Affiliation: Univ Calif Berkeley, Dept Phys, Berkeley, CA 94720 USA; Stanford Univ, Dept Phys, 452 Lomita Mall, Stanford, CA 94305 USA; Albert Ludwigs Univ Freiburg, Phys Inst, Hermann Herder Str 3, D-79104 Freiburg, Germany; QSTAR, INO CNR, Largo Enrico Fermi 2, Florence, Italy; QSTAR, LENS, Largo Enrico Fermi 2, Florence, Italy; Ist Nazl Ric Metrol, Str Cacce 91, I-10135 Turin, Italy; Univ Oxford Keble Coll, Oxford OX1 3PG, England; Mahidol Univ, Dept Phys, 272 Rama 6 Rd, Bangkok 10400, Thailand.

Abstract: The detailed characterization of non-trivial coherence properties of composite quantum systems of increasing size is an indispensable prerequisite for scalable quantum computation, as well as for understanding non-equilibrium many-body physics. Here, we show how autocorrelation functions in an interacting system of phonons as well as the quantum discord between distinct degrees of freedoms can be extracted from a small controllable part of the system. As a benchmark, we show this in chains of up to 42 trapped ions, by tracing a single phonon excitation through interferometric measurements of only a single ion in the chain. We observe the spreading and partial refocusing of the excitation in the chain, even on a background of thermal excitations. We further show how this local observable reflects the dynamical evolution of quantum discord between the electronic state and the vibrational degrees of freedom of the probe ion.

Journal/Review: NATURE COMMUNICATIONS

Volume: 8      Pages from: 15712-1  to: 15712-5

More Information: This work has been supported by AFOSR through the ARO Grant No. FA9550-11-1-0318 and by the NSF CAREER programme grant no. PHY 0955650. A.B. and H.-P.B. acknowledge support through the EU Collaborative Project QuProCS (Grant agreement 641277).
KeyWords: Trapped Ions; Quantum Dynamics; Entanglement; Transition; Systems; Spin
DOI: 10.1038/ncomms15712

Citations: 25
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