EIT ground-state cooling of long ion strings

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates rapid, simultaneous ground-state cooling of multiple radial modes in long ion strings using EIT cooling, a technique promising for large-scale quantum simulations.

Contribution

It provides the first experimental demonstration of EIT cooling on long ion strings, achieving fast, simultaneous ground-state cooling of all radial modes.

Findings

Cooling all radial modes in under 1 ms for up to 18 ions

Introduction of a novel single-shot phonon measurement technique

Enhanced cooling range compared to traditional methods

Abstract

Electromagnetically-induced-transparency (EIT) cooling is a ground-state cooling technique for trapped particles. EIT offers a broader cooling range in frequency space compared to more established methods. In this work, we experimentally investigate EIT cooling in strings of trapped atomic ions. In strings of up to 18 ions, we demonstrate simultaneous ground state cooling of all radial modes in under 1 ms. This is a particularly important capability in view of emerging quantum simulation experiments with large numbers of trapped ions. Our analysis of the EIT cooling dynamics is based on a novel technique enabling single-shot measurements of phonon numbers, by rapid adiabatic passage on a vibrational sideband of a narrow transition.