Dynamics of Entanglement in a Trapped Ion Quantum Magnet

现代量子科学最重要的目标之一是学习如何控制和纠缠多体系统，并利用它们来制造强大和改进的量子器件，量子材料和量子技术。该项目的总体目标是开发协议，将量化量子相关性的建立和量子信息在捕获离子晶体中的存储。研究工作可以放在量子模拟的背景下：首先，理论将指导实验的制度，理论预测可以作出和用于基准实验。接下来，将在动力学无法用当前理论方法进行的情况下进行实验。最后，这些实验将推动理论的发展，并使新的数值方法能够再现所观察到的动态。这些研究将成为新一代合成量子材料的基础，而不一定局限于捕获离子，其应用范围从精密传感和导航到量子通信和量子信息科学。此外，调查将培训和研究生和博士后提供研究经验。他们将与NIST/Boulder实验离子阱组、JILA理论组和位于Boulder的科罗拉多大学的理论组一起工作，从而将接触到高度合作的氛围，这将促进量子信息科学的进步。这项工作的智力价值是开发能够描述被困离子晶体中量子关联和纠缠动力学的新方法。这些数值和分析方法将被用来基准和指导NIST博尔德实验，其中数百个冷铍离子被限制在一个二维三角形晶格几何形状的潘宁陷阱。在这些实验中，自旋自由度被编码在离子的两个超精细状态和晶体的集体振动模式中，由激光束激发，用于产生高度可调谐的远程自旋-自旋相互作用。通过将改进的数值技术与更好的实验方案相结合，该团队将把捕获离子实验推向一个能够创建高度相关的量子态的领域，并从这些态的量子优势中获益，以增强传感和量子信息处理。这些都是具有挑战性的目标，但是研究人员的兴趣和能力的协同作用，以及量子光学，凝聚态物理学，理论和实验原子物理学的专业知识，该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准。

One of the most important goals of modern quantum sciences is to learn how to control and entangle many-body systems and use them to make powerful and improved quantum devices, quantum materials and quantum technologies. The overall goal of this project is to develop protocols that will quantify the build-up of quantum correlations and the storage of quantum information in a crystal of trapped ions. The research effort can be placed in the context of quantum simulation: First, theory will guide experiments in regimes where theoretical predictions can be made and used to benchmark experiments. Next, experiments will be done in regimes where the dynamics are inaccessible to current theoretical methods. Finally, these experiments will push the theory and enable the development of new numerical methods capable of reproducing the observed dynamic. These investigations will be foundational to a new generation of synthetic quantum materials, not necessarily limited to trapped ions, with applications ranging from precision sensing and navigation to quantum communication and quantum information science. Moreover, the investigations will train and provide research experience to a graduate student and a postdoc. They will work with the NIST/Boulder experimental ion trap group and the theory groups at JILA and the University of Colorado at Boulder, and thus will be exposed to a highly collaborative atmosphere that will promote advances in quantum information science.The intellectual merit of the work is to develop new methods capable of describing the dynamics of quantum correlations and entanglement in trapped ion crystals. These numerical and analytic methods will be used to benchmark and guide the NIST-Boulder experiments where hundreds of cold beryllium ions are confined by a Penning trap in a two-dimensional triangular lattice geometry. In these experiments the spin degree of freedom is encoded in two hyper-fine states of the ions and the collective vibrational modes of the crystal, excited by laser beams, used to generate highly tunable long-range spin-spin interactions. By combining improved numerical techniques with better experimental protocols this team will push trapped ion experiments into a regime where they are able to create highly correlated quantum states and profit from the quantum advantage of these states for enhanced sensing and quantum information processing. These are challenging goals, but the synergy of interests and abilities of the investigators, with expertise spanning quantum optics, condensed matter physics, and theoretical and experimental atomic physics, will allow this group to delve into a broad range of problems motivated by the promise of new quantum technologies.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.