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M. K. Joshi, M. Guevara-Bertsch, F. Kranzl, R. Blatt, C. F. Roos Characterization of ion-trap-induced ac magnetic fields,
Phys. Rev. A 110 63101 (2024-12-01),
http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.110.063101 doi:10.1103/PhysRevA.110.063101
The oscillating magnetic field produced by unbalanced currents in radio-frequency ion traps induces transition frequency shifts and sideband transitions that can be harmful to precision spectroscopy experiments. Here, we describe a methodology, based on two-photon spectroscopy, for determining both the strength and direction of rf-induced magnetic fields without modifying any DC magnetic bias field or changing any trap RF power. The technique is readily applicable to any trapped-ion experiment featuring narrow linewidth transitions.
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M. Mallweger, M. Guevara-Bertsch, B. T. Torosov, R. Thomm, N. Kuk, H. Parke, C. F. Roos, G. Higgins, M. Hennrich, N. V. Vitanov Motional-state analysis of a trapped ion by ultranarrowband composite pulses,
Phys. Rev. A 110 53103 (2024-11-07),
http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.110.053103 doi:10.1103/PhysRevA.110.053103
In this work, we present a method for measuring the motional state of a two-level system coupled to<br /><br />
a harmonic oscillator. Our technique uses ultra-narrowband composite pulses on the blue sideband<br /><br />
transition to scan through the populations of the different motional states. Our approach does<br /><br />
not assume any previous knowledge of the motional state distribution and is easily implemented.<br /><br />
It is applicable both inside and outside of the Lamb-Dicke regime. For higher phonon numbers<br /><br />
especially, the composite pulse sequence can be used as a filter for measuring phonon number<br /><br />
ranges. We demonstrate this measurement technique using a single trapped ion and show good<br /><br />
detection results with the numerically evaluated pulse sequence.
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L. K. Joshi, J. Franke, A. Rath, F. Ares, S. Murciano, F. Kranzl, R. Blatt, P. Zoller, B. Vermersch, P. Calabrese, C. F. Roos, M. K. Joshi Observing the quantum Mpemba effect in quantum simulations,
PRL 133 10402 (2024-07-01),
http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.133.010402 doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.133.010402
The non-equilibrium physics of many-body quantum systems harbors various unconventional phenomena. In this study, we experimentally investigate one of the most puzzling of these phenomena— the quantum Mpemba effect, where a tilted ferromagnet restores its symmetry more rapidly when it is farther from the symmetric state compared to when it is closer. We present the first experimental evidence of the occurrence of this effect in a trapped-ion quantum simulator. The symmetry breaking and restoration are monitored through entanglement asymmetry, probed via randomized measurements, and post-processed using the classical shadows technique. Our findings are further substantiated by measuring the Frobenius distance between the experimental state and the stationary thermal symmetric theoretical state, offering direct evidence of subsystem thermalization.
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H. Hainzer, D. Kiesenhofer, T. Ollikainen, M. Bock, F. Kranzl, M. K. Joshi, G. Yoeli, R. Blatt, T. Gefen, C. F. Roos Correlation Spectroscopy with Multiqubit-Enhanced Phase Estimation,
Phys. Rev. X 14 24 (2024-02-29),
http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevX.14.011033 doi:10.1103/PhysRevX.14.011033
Ramsey interferometry is a widely used tool for precisely measuring transition frequencies between two energy levels of a quantum system, with applications in time keeping, precision spectroscopy, quantum optics, and quantum information. Often, the coherence time of the quantum system surpasses the one of the<br />
oscillator probing the system, thereby limiting the interrogation time and associated spectral resolution.<br />
Correlation spectroscopy overcomes this limitation by probing two quantum systems with the same noisy<br />
oscillator for a measurement of their transition frequency difference; this technique has enabled very<br />
precise comparisons of atomic clocks. Here, we extend correlation spectroscopy to the case of multiple<br />
quantum systems undergoing strong correlated dephasing. We model Ramsey correlation spectroscopy<br />
with N particles as a multiparameter phase estimation problem and demonstrate that multiparticle correlations can assist in reducing the measurement uncertainties even in the absence of entanglement. We<br />
derive precision limits and optimal sensing techniques for this problem and compare the performance of<br />
probe states and measurement with and without entanglement. Using one- and two-dimensional ion<br />
Coulomb crystals with up to 91 qubits, we experimentally demonstrate the advantage of measuring multiparticle correlations for reducing phase uncertainties and apply correlation spectroscopy to measure ion-ion distances, transition frequency shifts, laser-ion detunings, and path-length fluctuations. Our method can be straightforwardly implemented in experimental setups with globally coherent qubit control and<br />
qubit-resolved single-shot readout and is, thus, applicable to other physical systems such as neutral atoms in tweezer arrays.
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M. K. Joshi, C. Kokail, R. van Bijnen, F. Kranzl, T. Zache, R. Blatt, C. F. Roos, P. Zoller Exploring Large-Scale Entanglement in Quantum Simulation,
Nature 624 539 (2023-11-29),
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06768-0 doi:10.1038/s41586-023-06768-0
Entanglement is a distinguishing feature of quantum many-body systems, and uncovering the entanglement structure for large particle numbers in quantum simulation experiments is a fundamental challenge in quantum information science. Here we perform experimental investigations of entanglement based on the entanglement Hamiltonian, as an effective description of the reduced density operator for large subsystems. We prepare ground and excited states of a 1D XXZ Heisenberg chain on a 51-ion programmable quantum simulator and perform sample-efficient `learning' of the entanglement Hamiltonian for subsystems of up to 20 lattice sites. Our experiments provide compelling evidence for a local structure of the entanglement Hamiltonian. This observation marks the first instance of confirming the fundamental predictions of quantum field theory by Bisognano and Wichmann, adapted to lattice models that represent correlated quantum matter. The reduced state takes the form of a Gibbs ensemble, with a spatially-varying temperature profile as a signature of entanglement. Our results also show the transition from area to volume-law scaling of Von Neumann entanglement entropies from ground to excited states. As we venture towards achieving quantum advantage, we anticipate that our findings and methods have wide-ranging applicability to revealing and understanding entanglement in many-body problems with local interactions including higher spatial dimensions.
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F. Kranzl, S. Birnkammer, M. K. Joshi, A. Bastianello, R. Blatt, M. Knap, C. F. Roos Observation of magnon bound states in the long-range, anisotropic Heisenberg model,
Phys. Rev. X 13 031017-12 (2023-08-11),
http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevX.13.031017 doi:10.1103/PhysRevX.13.031017
Over the recent years coherent, time-periodic modulation has been established as a versatile tool for realizing novel Hamiltonians. Using this approach, known as Floquet engineering, we experimentally realize a long-ranged, anisotropic Heisenberg model with tunable interactions in a trapped ion quantum simulator. We demonstrate that the spectrum of the model contains not only single magnon excitations but also composite magnon bound states. For the long-range interactions with the experimentally realized power-law exponent, the group velocity of magnons is unbounded. Nonetheless, for sufficiently strong interactions we observe bound states of these unconventional magnons which possess a non-diverging group velocity. By measuring the configurational mutual information between two disjoint intervals, we demonstrate the implications of the bound state formation on the entanglement dynamics of the system. Our observations provide key insights into the peculiar role of composite excitations in the non-equilibrium dynamics of quantum many-body systems.
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I. Vybornyi, L. Dreissen, D. Kiesenhofer, H. Hainzer, M. Bock, T. Ollikainen, D. Vadlejch, C. F. Roos, T. E. Mehlstäubler, K. Hammerer Sideband thermometry of ion crystals,
PRX Quantum 4 40346 (2023-06-14),
http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PRXQuantum.4.040346 doi:10.1103/PRXQuantum.4.040346
Coulomb crystals of cold trapped ions are a leading platform for the realisation of quantum processors and quantum simulations and, in quantum metrology, for the construction of optical atomic clocks and for fundamental tests of the Standard Model. For these applications, it is not only essential to cool the ion crystal in all its degrees of freedom down to the quantum ground state, but also to be able to determine its temperature with a high accuracy. However, when a large ground-state cooled crystal is interrogated for thermometry, complex many-body interactions take place, making it challenging to accurately estimate the temperature with established techniques. In this work we present a new thermometry method tailored for ion crystals. The method is applicable to all normal modes of motion and does not suffer from a computational bottleneck when applied to large ion crystals. We test the temperature estimate with two experiments, namely with a 1D linear chain of 4 ions and a 2D crystal of 19 ions and verify the results, where possible, using other methods. The results show that the new method is an accurate and efficient tool for thermometry of ion crystals.
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F. Kranzl, A. Lasek, M. K. Joshi, A. Kalev, R. Blatt, C. F. Roos, N. Yunger Halpern Experimental observation of thermalization with noncommuting charges,
PRX Quantum 4 20318 (2023-04-28),
http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PRXQuantum.4.020318 doi:10.1103/PRXQuantum.4.020318
Quantum simulators have recently enabled experimental observations of the internal thermalization of quantum many-body systems. Often, the global energy and particle number are conserved and the system is prepared with a well-defined particle number—in a microcanonical subspace. However, quantum evolution can also conserve quantities, or charges, that fail to commute with each other. Noncommuting charges have recently emerged as a subfield at the intersection of quantum thermodynamics and quantum information. Until now, this subfield has remained theoretical. We initiate the experimental testing of its predictions, with a trapped-ion simulator. We prepare 6–21 spins in an approximate microcanonical subspace, a generalization of the microcanonical subspace for accommodating noncommuting charges, which cannot necessarily have well-defined nontrivial values simultaneously. We simulate a Heisenberg evolution using laser-induced entangling interactions and collective spin rotations. The noncommuting charges are the three spin components. We find that small subsystems equilibrate to near a recently predicted non-Abelian thermal state. This work bridges quantum many-body simulators to the quantum thermodynamics of noncommuting charges, the predictions of which can now be tested.
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D. Kiesenhofer, H. Hainzer, A. Zhdanov, P. Holz, M. Bock, T. Ollikainen, C. F. Roos Controlling two-dimensional Coulomb crystals of more than 100 ions in a monolithic radio-frequency trap,
PRX Quantum 4 20317 (2023-04-28),
http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PRXQuantum.4.020317 doi:10.1103/PRXQuantum.4.020317
Linear strings of trapped atomic ions held in radio-frequency (rf) traps constitute one of the leading platforms for quantum simulation experiments, allowing the investigation of interacting quantum matter. However, linear ion strings have drawbacks, such as the difficulty of scaling beyond approximately 50 particles as well as the inability to naturally implement spin models with more than one spatial dimension. Here we present experiments with planar Coulomb crystals of up to 105 40Ca+ ions in a novel monolithic rf trap, laying the groundwork for quantum simulations of two-dimensional spin models with single-particle control. We characterize the trapping potential by analysis of crystal images and compare the observed crystal configurations with numerical simulations. We further demonstrate stable confinement of large crystals, free of structural configuration changes, and find that rf heating of the crystal is not an obstacle for future quantum simulation experiments. Finally, we prepare the out-of-plane motional modes of planar crystals consisting of up to 105 ions close to their ground state by electromagnetically induced transparency cooling, an important prerequisite for implementing long-range entangling interactions.
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J. Franke, S. M. Muleady, C. R. Kaubrügger, F. Kranzl, R. Blatt, A. M. Rey, M. K. Joshi, C. F. Roos Quantum-enhanced sensing on optical transitions through finite-range interactions,
Nature 621 740 (2023-03-27),
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06472-z doi:10.1038/s41586-023-06472-z
The control over quantum states in atomic systems has led to the most precise optical atomic clocks to date. Their sensitivity is currently bounded by the standard quantum limit, a fundamental floor set by quantum mechanics for uncorrelated particles, which can nevertheless be overcome when operated with entangled particles. Yet demonstrating a quantum advantage in real world sensors is extremely challenging and remains to be achieved aside from two remarkable examples, LIGO and more recently HAYSTAC. Here we illustrate a pathway for harnessing scalable entanglement in an optical transition using 1D chains of up to 51 ions with state-dependent interactions that decay as a power-law function of the ion separation. We show our sensor can be made to behave as a one-axis-twisting (OAT) model, an iconic fully connected model known to generate scalable squeezing. The collective nature of the state manifests itself in the preservation of the total transverse magnetization, the reduced growth of finite momentum spin-wave excitations, the generation of spin squeezing comparable to OAT (a Wineland parameter of −3.9±0.3 dB for only N = 12 ions) and the development of non-Gaussian states in the form of atomic multi-headed cat states in the Q-distribution. The simplicity of our protocol enables scalability to large arrays with minimal overhead, opening the door to advances in timekeeping as well as new methods for preserving coherence in quantum simulation and computation. We demonstrate this in a Ramsey-type interferometer, where we reduce the measurement uncertainty by −3.2±0.5 dB below the standard quantum limit for N = 51 ions.