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Advanced Quantum Technologies

Trapped Ion Architecture for Multi‐Dimensional Quantum Simulations

Ulrich Warring, Frederick Hakelberg, Philip Kiefer, Matthias Wittemer, Tobias Schaetz

Published Apr 24, 2020• 12 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Abstract A rich and powerful toolbox for individually trapped atomic ions is available for quantum information processing, including quantum metrology and quantum simulation, demonstrating control with highest fidelities. Building on this success, a novel architecture for analog quantum simulations aims at setting up fully controlled and reconfigurable quantum lattices by individually trapped ions in multi‐dimensional arrangements. In this article, an overview of recent developments and demonstrations of prototype operations is given. The features and limitations of the architecture are discussed and crucial steps toward mid and long‐term simulation applications are laid out.

DOI
10.1002/qute.201900137

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Abstract A rich and powerful toolbox for individually trapped atomic ions is available for quantum information processing, including quantum metrology and quantum simulation, demonstrating control with highest fidelities. Building on this success, a novel architecture for analog quantum simulations aims at setting up fully controlled and reconfigurable quantum lattices by individually trapped ions in multi‐dimensional arrangements. In this article, an overview of recent developments and demonstrations of prototype operations is given. The features and limitations of the architecture are discussed and crucial steps toward mid and long‐term simulation applications are laid out.
Trapped atomic ions are among the most advanced platforms for quantum simulation, computation, and metrology, offering long coherence times and precise, individual control over both internal and motional degrees of freedom. In this review, we present a pedagogical introduction to trapped-ion systems, covering the physics of ion trapping, qubit encodings, and laser-ion interactions. We explain how spin-dependent forces generated by light fields enable both analog and digital quantum simulations of spin and spin-boson models, as well as high-fidelity quantum logic gates. We then highlight an emerging frontier in the simulation of chemical dynamics, summarizing recent experiments that demonstrate the capability of trapped ions to simulate vibronic models and excitation-transfer processes. Finally, we outline future directions in quantum simulation and discuss open challenges in scaling up trapped-ion architectures.
Trapped ions offer long coherence times and high fidelity, programmable quantum operations, making them a promising platform for quantum simulation of condensed matter systems, quantum dynamics, and problems related to high-energy physics. We review selected developments in trapped-ion qubits and architectures and discuss quantum simulation applications that utilize these emerging capabilities. This review emphasizes developments in digital (gate-based) quantum simulations that exploit trapped-ion hardware capabilities, such as flexible qubit connectivity, selective mid-circuit measurement, and classical feedback, to simulate models with long-range interactions, explore non-unitary dynamics, compress simulations of states with limited entanglement, and reduce the circuit depths required to prepare or simulate long-range entangled states.
Trapped ions are a promising platform for envisioned quantum simulators, with outstanding results in one-dimensional ion crystals. However, theory requires not only interactions at long range, but also higher dimensionality. We operate a basic triangular array of three individually trapped ions based on scalable microfabrication technology. We demonstrate coherent coupling, tunable in real time and enabling interference in 2D, an essential building block for a reconfigurable quantum simulator. Mitigating motional heating will permit accessing the quantum regime and 2D experimental quantum simulations.
Current classical computing methods are unable to simulate quantum many-body interactions efficiently.Analog quantum simulators with even small numbers of quantum degrees of freedom are expected to enable the investigation of systems not fully accessible in traditional computing such as condensed-matter systems, quantum chemistry, and material science.Two-dimensional lattices of trapped ions are a good candidate to realize an analog quantum simulator for their addressability, individual control and individual detection.Here, we report on multiple unique lattice surface ion trap designs, microfabricated at Sandia National Laboratories, capable of trapping and interacting up to 4 ions.Ions are held in close proximity in individual all radio-frequency potential minima and interact via their Coulomb repulsion.The Coulomb coupling between ions allows for simulation of spin-spin interactions 1-6 .Control electrodes of the trap can be used to adjust principal axes of the ion's motion and thus enable individual control over the interaction between ions.The lattice trap array architecture tested in this work can be scaled to larger two-dimensional lattices of trapped ions.
The basic requirements for quantum computing and quantum simulation (single‐ and multi‐qubit gates, long memory times, etc.) have been demonstrated in separate experiments on trapped ions. Construction of a large‐scale information processor will require synthesis of these elements and implementation of high‐fidelity operations on a very large number of qubits. This is still well in the future. NIST and other groups are addressing part of the scaling issue by trying to fabricate multi‐zone arrays of traps that would allow highly‐parallel and scalable processing. In the near term, some simple quantum processing protocols are being used to aid in quantum metrology, such as in atomic clocks. As the number of qubits increases, Schrödinger’s cat paradox and the measurement problem in quantum mechanics become more apparent; with luck, trapped ion systems might be able to shed light on these fundamental issues.
The state-of-the-art of the Innsbruck trapped-ion quantum computer [1] is briefly reviewed. We present an overview on the available quantum toolbox and discuss the scalability of the approach. With up to 50 fully controlled ion qubits we perform quantum simulations investigating quantum transport [2] and emerging hydrodynamics features [3]. Employing the quantum toolbox for entanglement-enhanced Ramsey interferometry, we find optimal parameters for quantum metrology [4]. Quantum computers can be protected from noise by encoding the logical quantum information redundantly into multiple qubits using error-correcting codes. Manipulating logical quantum states by imperfect operations requires that all operations on the quantum register obey a fault-tolerant circuit design to avoid spreading uncontrolled errors. We demonstrate a fault-tolerant universal set of gates on two logical qubits in the trapped-ion quantum computer [5].