Thermally induced entanglement of atomic oscillators

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that thermal energy can induce entanglement between ions in a trap through nonlinear interactions, revealing novel quantum phenomena in few-body systems with potential experimental realization.

Contribution

It introduces a mechanism for thermally induced entanglement in trapped ions via anharmonic modulation of vibrational interactions, a novel approach in quantum simulation.

Findings

Thermally driven nonlinear interactions generate entanglement autonomously.

Feasible parameter regimes for experimental observation are identified.

Multiqubit enhancement of thermal entanglement is demonstrated.

Abstract

Laser cooled ions trapped in a linear Paul trap are long-standing ideal candidates for realizing quantum simulation, especially of many-body systems. The properties that contribute to this also provide the opportunity to demonstrate unexpected quantum phenomena in few-body systems. A pair of ions interacting in such traps exchange vibrational quanta through the Coulomb interaction. This linear interaction can be anharmonically modulated by an elementary coupling to the internal two-level structure of one of the ions. Driven by thermal energy in the passively coupled oscillators, which are themselves coupled to the internal ground states of the ions, the nonlinear interaction autonomously and unconditionally generates entanglement between the mechanical modes of the ions. We examine this counter-intuitive thermally induced entanglement for several experimentally feasible model systems, and propose parameter regimes where state of the art trapped ion systems can produce such phenomena. In addition, we demonstrate a multiqubit enhancement of such thermally induced entanglement.