Optimal transport of two ions under slow spring-constant drifts

TL;DR

This paper develops robust transport protocols for two ions in a trap with slow spring-constant drifts, minimizing excitation energy using invariant-based engineering and normal-mode analysis.

Contribution

It introduces a simple, explicit trigonometric trap trajectory protocol that effectively mitigates effects of slow spring-constant drifts in ion transport.

Findings

The protocol reduces final excitation energy under spring-constant drifts.

Invariant-based inverse engineering effectively designs robust transport trajectories.

The approach is applicable to ions of different masses.

Abstract

We investigate the effect of slow spring-constant drifts of the trap used to shuttle two ions of different mass. We design transport protocols to suppress or mitigate the final excitation energy by applying invariant-based inverse engineering, perturbation theory, and a harmonic dynamical normal-mode approximation. A simple, explicit trigonometric protocol for the trap trajectory is found to be robust with respect to the spring-constant drifts.