Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE

Simulation of quantum magnetism with trapped ions

Diego Porras, J. I. Cirac

Published Jun 1, 2005• 1 citation

Abstract

Quantum spin models describe quantum magnetism in Solid-State systems. Even when some of these models were proposed at the very beginning of quantum mechanics their study is hindered by the fact that they are very difficult to be studied numerically. Quantum computers could allow us to solve this problem because they can be used for the efficient simulation of many-body quantum systems. In our work we propose an alternative that is easier than quantum computation. By means of lasers a set of trapped ions can simulate the physics of interacting spins in such a way that the range and the sign of the interactions can be tuned by the choice of lasers and trapping conditions. Our proposal can be applied to the simulation of Ising XY and Heisenberg models.

DOI: 10.1117/12.620491

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