Trapped ions in optical lattices for probing oscillator chain models

TL;DR

This paper proposes using trapped ions in optical lattices to simulate oscillator chain models, enabling the study of static, dynamic, and quantum critical properties with potential experimental implementations.

Contribution

It introduces a novel setup of trapped ions in optical lattices for simulating oscillator models and details how to probe their quantum phase behavior.

Findings

Optical lattice power significantly affects ion chain properties.

Numerical simulations confirm feasibility with realistic parameters.

Proposed scheme to use spin states for phase space and criticality analysis.

Abstract

We show that a chain of trapped ions embedded in microtraps generated by an optical lattice can be used to study oscillator models related to dry friction and energy transport. Numerical calculations with realistic experimental parameters demonstrate that both static and dynamic properties of the ion chain change significantly as the optical lattice power is varied. Finally, we lay out an experimental scheme to use the spin degree of freedom to probe the phase space structure and quantum critical behavior of the ion chain.