Competing many-body interactions in systems of trapped ions

TL;DR

This paper proposes a method to induce and analyze dominant three-spin interactions in trapped ion systems using lasers, enabling the exploration of exotic quantum phases beyond natural counterparts.

Contribution

It introduces a theoretical framework for controlling 3-spin interactions in trapped ions, expanding the possibilities for quantum simulation of complex many-body phenomena.

Findings

Conditions for effective 3-spin Hamiltonian are established

Qualitative quantum phase diagram predicted

Laser parameters can tune the dominance of 3-spin interactions

Abstract

We propose and theoretically analyse an experimental configuration in which lasers induce 3-spin interactions between trapped ions.By properly choosing the intensities and frequencies of the lasers, 3-spin couplings may be dominant or comparable to 2-spin terms and magnetic fields. In this way, trapped ions can be used to study exotic quantum phases which do not have a counterpart in nature. We study the conditions for the validity of the effective 3-spin Hamiltonian, and predict qualitatively the quantum phase diagram of the system.