We propose a scheme to perform a fundamental two-qubit gate between two trapped ions using ideas from atom interferometry. As opposed to the scheme considered by J. I. Cirac and P. Zoller, [Phys. Rev. Lett. 74, 4091 (1995)], it does not require laser cooling to the motional ground state.
The purpose of this article is to review two complementary schemes for quantum computation with trapped ions. We initially discuss the first proposal of quantum computations with cold trapped ions (J. I. Cirac and P. Zoller; Phys. Rev. Lett. 74, 4091, 1995) which requires, prior to any computation, laser cooling to the motional ground state. This proposal is closely related to the physics of generating and manipulating N-particles entangled states in both ion traps and high-Q cavities (cavity quantum electrodynamics). The second scheme is that of quantum computations with hot trapped ions (J.F. Poyatos, J.I. Cirac and P. Zoller; Phys. Rev. Lett. 81, 1322, 1998) which works at finite temperature and resembles physical ideas found in atom interferometry.
: A single laser-cooled and trapped Be ion is used to investigate methods of coherent 9 + quantum-state synthesis and quantum logic. We create and characterize nonclassical states of motion including "Schrödinger-cat" states. A fundamental quantum logic gate is realized which uses two states of the quantized ion motion and two ion internal states as qubits. We explore some of the applications for, and problems in realizing, quantum computation based on multiple trapped ions. V w V o 2 cos(6 T t) 1 # x 2 # y 2 R 2 , 2 (1) 1. INTRODUCTION Currently, a major theme in atomic, molecular, and optical physics is coherent control of quantum states. This theme is manifested in a number of topics such as atom interferometry, Bose-Einstein condensation and the atom laser, cavity QED, quantum computation, quantumstate engineering, wavepacket dynamics, and coherent control of chemical reactions. Here, we report related trapped-ion research at NIST which is devoted primarily to a...