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arXiv:2402.03937 · APL Quantum

Thermal transport through a single trapped ion under strong laser illumination

T. Tassis, Frederico Brito, F. L. Semião

Published Feb 26, 2025• 2 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

In this work, we study quantum heat transport in a single trapped ion, driven by laser excitation and coupled to thermal reservoirs operating at different temperatures. Our focus lies in understanding how different laser coupling scenarios impact the system dynamics. As the laser intensity reaches a regime where the electronic and motional degrees of freedom of the ion couple strongly, traditional approaches using phenomenological models for thermal reservoirs become inadequate. Therefore, the adoption of the dressed master equation formalism becomes crucial, enabling a deeper understanding of how distinct laser intensities influence heat transport. Analyzing the heat current within the parameter space defined by detuning and coupling strength, we observe intriguing circular patterns that are influenced by the vibrational frequency of the ion and laser parameters and reveal nuanced relationships between heat transport and coherence, as well as phenomena such as negative differential heat conductivity and heat rectification, offering insights into the thermal properties of this essential quantum technology setup.

DOI
10.1063/5.0245668

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In this work, we study quantum heat transport in a single trapped ion, driven by laser excitation and coupled to thermal reservoirs operating at different temperatures. Our focus lies in understanding how different laser coupling scenarios impact the system dynamics. As the laser intensity reaches a regime where the electronic and motional degrees of freedom of the ion couple strongly, traditional approaches using phenomenological models for thermal reservoirs become inadequate. Therefore, the adoption of the dressed master equation formalism becomes crucial, enabling a deeper understanding of how distinct laser intensities influence heat transport. Analyzing the heat current within the parameter space defined by detuning and coupling strength, we observe intriguing circular patterns that are influenced by the vibrational frequency of the ion and laser parameters and reveal nuanced relationships between heat transport and coherence, as well as phenomena such as negative differential heat conductivity and heat rectification, offering insights into the thermal properties of this essential quantum technology setup.
Quantum heat transport governs energy exchange processes and statistical laws in non-equilibrium quantum systems, and plays a pivotal role in quantum thermodynamics. We investigate the steady-state thermal transport of a noncommuting coupled spin system. We employ the quantum dressed master equation approach within the framework of open quantum system theory to accurately analyze the non-equilibrium dynamics, ensuring the validity of transport results in the strong coupling regime. Our results demonstrate that noncommuting spin coupling serves as a significant resource for modulating the nonlinearity of the heat current. Specifically, in the weak spin-coupling regime, the system exhibits robust negative differential thermal conductance (NDTC) across various spin numbers. By deriving analytical expressions for the heat current in both the single-spin and large-spin limits, we reveal that this NDTC behavior is governed by microscopic cycle fluxes. Physically, this arises because spin excitation channels induced by the cold reservoir are suppressed under a large temperature bias, thereby blocking energy exchange cycles. Conversely, in the strong spin-coupling and large temperature bias regime, the quantum system demonstrates pronounced thermal rectification. This high rectification efficiency originates from the unidirectional saturation of the heat current, rendering the system a promising candidate for high-performance thermal diodes. Furthermore, we extend the model to a three-terminal configuration to construct a quantum thermal transistor. By manipulating the temperature of the gate reservoir, we achieve efficient modulation and amplification of heat flow between the source and drain. The heat amplification factor is shown to far exceed unity in specific operating regions, confirming significant thermal amplification.
We analyze the heat transport in an ion chain that is confined in a strongly anisotropic Paul trap. To drive a heat current across the chain different pairs of counterpropagating laser beams are applied to the ions on the edges. The lasers behave as heat reservoirs operating at different temperatures, and a nonequilibrium heat flow can be sustained. The control of the spatial distribution of the ions in the chain by variation of the trapping frequencies makes ion chains an ideal testbed to study heat transport properties in finite open systems of low dimensionality with tunable nonlinearities. We explore heat transport across a structural phase transition between the linear and zigzag configurations, identifying the condition for optimal heat transport.
The quantum phonon laser state is a vibrational state generated by phonon coherent amplification based on quantum mechanics. Its core is coherent excitation and manipulation of phonon quantum states by controlling phonon dynamics. This technology breaks classical limits of traditional phonon lasers, offering new methods for quantum information. Previous research on quantum phonon lasers focused on quantum van der Pol oscillators. As typical nonlinear quantum systems, they show significant value in trapped-ion systems. These breakthroughs extend nonlinear dynamics into the quantum domain and provide platforms for exploring quantum nonlinear phenomena. Although realized in two-ion systems, practical applications remain challenging. This paper explores how a single trapped ion generates quantum phonon laser states using a three-level model. By solving the quantum master equation numerically, steady-state characteristics are analyzed, focusing on quantum statistics including the Wigner function and second-order correlation function. An experimental scheme is proposed based on a single trapped 40Ca+ ion, using bichromatic blue-sideband and red-sideband lasers to generate quantum phonon laser states. By introducing the characteristic function of motional states, precise quantum state tomography is achieved. Additionally, a two-level model discusses the phonon laser threshold effect. However, the three-level model shows significantly different thresholds and more accurately describes the quantum phonon laser's physical mechanisms.
Energy transport in low-dimensional systems or systems with long-range interactions shows unusual properties not observed in conventional three-dimensional materials. Trapped linear ion chains have been proposed as an ideal platform to study such phenomena, but many predicted features have not been demonstrated yet and the existing experiments mainly focus on the weak excitation limit where the dynamics can be described by linearized phonon modes. Here, we study the energy transport in a chain of 174Yb+^{174}\mathrm{Yb}^{+}174Yb+ ions using a focused heating laser beam. Nontrivial effects are observed such as a nonmonotonic energy distribution with reflection symmetry, oscillatory heating dynamics, and a change in the heating pattern due to the competition between the external driving and interion coupling. Our work deepens the understanding about transport in low-dimensional systems and also provides guidelines for the sympathetic cooling of long ion chains, with applications in quantum information processing and precision measurement.
The interaction of a cold trapped ion with a strong laser field is studied in a configuration in which quasienergetic levels become important but heating of the system is unessential. Absorption spectroscopy of the quasienergetic states of a strongly confined and laser-driven trapped ion is analyzed by probing vibrational transitions. Calculations are carried out analytically by using the master equation in quasienergetic state representation. We consider a V\mathsf{V}V-level scheme for the ion with a resonant strong pump field and a weak probe field. The steady-state and time-evolution behavior of the system is discussed and the probe-field absorption spectrum for various initial population distributions of the motional state is calculated. It is found that the absorption spectrum displays vibrational sidebands with multipeak splitting due to the nonlinear dependence of the Rabi frequencies on both the Lamb-Dicke parameter and the trap occupation number. This multipeak splitting has interesting consequences and can be useful for the measurement of the initial trap number population distribution.