# Quantum computer with cold ions in the Aubry pinned phase

## TL;DR

This paper proposes a scalable quantum computer design using cold ions in an Aubry pinned phase, achieved by adding a periodic potential, which stabilizes ion positions and enables quantum gate operations.

## Contribution

It introduces a modified ion trap setup with a periodic potential to realize a scalable quantum computer in the Aubry phase, highlighting potential experimental implementations.

## Key findings

- Aubry phase stabilizes ion positions and phonon gaps independent of ion number.
- Single- and two-qubit gates are feasible between nearby ions in this phase.
- Disorder in microtrap arrays can induce Anderson localization of phonons, useful for quantum computing.

## Abstract

It is proposed to modify the Cirac-Zoller proposal of quantum computer with cold ions in a global oscillator trap potential by adding a periodic potential with an incommensurate average ratio of number of ions to number of periods being order of unity. With the increase of the periodic potential amplitude the system enters in the Aubry pinned phase characterized by quasi-frozen positions of ions and a gap of their first phonon excitations becomes independent of number of ions. This gives hopes that this quantum computer will be really scalable. It is argued that the usual single- and two-qubit gates can be realized between the nearby ions in the Aubry phase. The possibilities of experimental realizations of a periodic potential with microtrap arrays or optical lattices are discussed. It is pointed that the disorder of distances between microtraps with one ion per trap can lead to the Anderson localization of phonon modes with interesting possibilities for ion quantum computing.