In this paper, we study generation of entangled states in a system which consists of a single trapped ion in a cavity. We obtain a cross-Kerr-like interaction between the cavity field (photons) and the centre-of-mass motion (phonons) of the trapped ion in the Lamb–Dicke and large detuning regime. Based on this cross-Kerr-like interaction, we create hybrid entangled states between the phonon mode and the ionic internal states, and between the cavity field and ionic internal states, respectively. We also show that it is possible to prepare entangled coherent states between the cavity field and the phonon mode. We explicitly obtain an entangled state between two pairs of Schrödinger-cat states.
We derive an effective Hamiltonian that describes a cross-Kerr-type interaction in a system involving a two-level trapped ion coupled to the quantized field inside a cavity. We assume a large detuning between the ion and field (dispersive limit) and this results in an interaction Hamiltonian involving the product of the (bosonic) ionic vibrational motion and field number operators. We also demonstrate the feasibility of operation of a phase gate based on our Hamiltonian. The gate is insensitive to spontaneous emission, an important feature for the practical implementation of quantum computing.