Wigner crystals of ions as quantum hard drives

TL;DR

This paper proposes a robust method using laser cooled ion Wigner crystals in Penning traps to engineer complex interactions for universal quantum computation, enabling fast cluster state generation and non-local architectures.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach to create non-trivial 2-body interactions in ion crystals for quantum computing, extending to large cluster states and non-local systems.

Findings

Effective engineering of 2-body interactions for quantum computation

Fast generation of large cluster states demonstrated

Proposal for non-local quantum architectures

Abstract

Atomic systems in regular lattices are intriguing systems for implementing ideas in quantum simulation and information processing. Focusing on laser cooled ions forming Wigner crystals in Penning traps, we find a robust and simple approach to engineering non-trivial 2-body interactions sufficient for universal quantum computation. We then consider extensions of our approach to the fast generation of large cluster states, and a non-local architecture using an asymmetric entanglement generation procedure between a Penning trap system and well-established linear Paul trap designs.