Quantum communication between trapped ions through a dissipative environment

TL;DR

This paper proposes a scheme to generate maximally entangled states of two trapped ions using their phononic environment as an entangling bus, enabling robust quantum communication within a decoherence-free subspace.

Contribution

It introduces a novel method to produce entanglement via a dissipative environment, applicable regardless of temperature and mode number, advancing quantum communication techniques.

Findings

Successful generation of maximally entangled states in trapped ions

Entanglement is achieved through a dissipative phononic environment

Method is robust against environmental temperature and mode complexity

Abstract

We study two trapped ions coupled to the axial phonon modes of a one-dimensional Coulomb crystal. This system is formally equivalent to the "two spin-boson" model. We propose a scheme to dynamically generate a maximally entangled state of two ions within a decoherence-free subspace. Here the phononic environment of the trapped ions, whatever its temperature and number of modes, serves as the entangling bus. The efficient production of the pure singlet state can be exploited to perform short-ranged quantum communication which is essential in building up a large-scale quantum computer.