No Arabic abstract
Most ions lack the fast, cycling transitions that are necessary for direct laser cooling. In most cases, they can still be cooled sympathetically through their Coulomb interaction with a second, coolable ion species confined in the same potential. If the charge-to-mass ratios of the two ion types are too mismatched, the cooling of certain motional degrees of freedom becomes difficult. This limits both the achievable fidelity of quantum gates and the spectroscopic accuracy. Here we introduce a novel algorithmic cooling protocol for transferring phonons from poorly- to efficiently-cooled modes. We demonstrate it experimentally by simultaneously bringing two motional modes of a Be$^{+}$-Ar$^{13+}$ mixed Coulomb crystal close to their zero-point energies, despite the weak coupling between the ions. We reach the lowest temperature reported for a highly charged ion, with a residual temperature of only $Tlesssim200~mathrm{mu K}$ in each of the two modes, corresponding to a residual mean motional phonon number of $langle n rangle lesssim 0.4$. Combined with the lowest observed electric field noise in a radiofrequency ion trap, these values enable an optical clock based on a highly charged ion with fractional systematic uncertainty below the $10^{-18}$ level. Our scheme is also applicable to (anti-)protons, molecular ions, macroscopic charged particles, and other highly charged ion species, enabling reliable preparation of their motional quantum ground states in traps.
There are well-known protocols for performing CNOT quantum logic with qubits coupled by particular high-symmetry (Ising or Heisenberg) interactions. However, many architectures being considered for quantum computation involve qubits or qubits and resonators coupled by more complicated and less symmetric interactions. Here we consider a widely applicable model of weakly but otherwise arbitrarily coupled two-level systems, and use quantum gate design techniques to derive a simple and intuitive CNOT construction. Useful variations and extensions of the solution are given for common special cases.
A quantum theory of cooling of a mechanical oscillator by radiation pressure-induced dynamical back-action is developed, which is analogous to sideband cooling of trapped ions. We find that final occupancies well below unity can be attained when the mechanical oscillation frequency is larger than the cavity linewidth. It is shown that the final average occupancy can be retrieved directly from the optical output spectrum.
We demonstrate ground-state cooling of a trapped ion using radio-frequency (RF) radiation. This is a powerful tool for the implementation of quantum operations, where RF or microwave radiation instead of lasers is used for motional quantum state engineering. We measure a mean phonon number of $overline{n} = 0.13(4)$ after sideband cooling, corresponding to a ground-state occupation probability of 88(7)%. After preparing in the vibrational ground state, we demonstrate motional state engineering by driving Rabi oscillations between the n=0 and n=1 Fock states. We also use the ability to ground-state cool to accurately measure the motional heating rate and report a reduction by almost two orders of magnitude compared to our previously measured result, which we attribute to carefully eliminating sources of electrical noise in the system.
The ground state entanglement of the system, both in discrete-time and continuous-time cases, is quantified through the linear entropy. The result shows that the entanglement increases as the interaction between the particles increases in both time scales. It is also found that the strength of the harmonic potential affects the formation rate of the entanglement of the system. The different feature of the entanglement between continuous-time and discrete-time scales is that, for discrete-time entanglement, there is a cut-off condition. This condition implies that the system can never be in a maximally entangled state.
We demonstrate sympathetic sideband cooling of a $^{40}$CaH$^{+}$ molecular ion co-trapped with a $^{40}$Ca$^{+}$ atomic ion in a linear Paul trap. Both axial modes of the two-ion chain are simultaneously cooled to near the ground state of motion. The center of mass mode is cooled to an average quanta of harmonic motion $overline{n}_{mathrm{COM}} = 0.13 pm 0.03$, corresponding to a temperature of $12.47 pm 0.03 ~mu$K. The breathing mode is cooled to $overline{n}_{mathrm{BM}} = 0.05 pm 0.02$, corresponding to a temperature of $15.36 pm 0.01~mu$K.