Photon-Assisted-Tunneling Toolbox for Quantum Simulations in Ion Traps

TL;DR

This paper presents a comprehensive toolbox for quantum simulation using photon-assisted tunneling in ion traps, enabling exploration of complex many-body phenomena including gauge fields, disorder, and strong interactions.

Contribution

It introduces a non-perturbative, versatile method for controlling quantum dynamics in ion trap arrays, applicable to bosons and fermions for simulating diverse quantum phases.

Findings

Proposes a detailed theoretical scheme for ion trap quantum simulators.

Demonstrates the ability to simulate fractional quantum Hall states.

Shows potential to explore exotic strongly-correlated phases.

Abstract

We describe a versatile toolbox for the quantum simulation of many-body lattice models, capable of exploring the combined effects of background Abelian and non-Abelian gauge fields, bond and site disorder, and strong on-site interactions. We show how to control the quantum dynamics of particles trapped in lattice potentials by the photon-assisted tunneling induced by periodic drivings. This scheme is general enough to be applied to either bosons or fermions with the additional advantage of being non-perturbative. It finds an ideal application in microfabricated ion trap arrays, where the quantized vibrational modes of the ions can be described by a quantum lattice model. We present a detailed theoretical proposal for a quantum simulator in that experimental setup, and show that it is possible to explore phases of matter that range from the fractional quantum Hall effect, to exotic strongly-correlated glasses, or flux-lattice models decorated with arbitrary patterns of localized defects.