Parametric Amplification of Spin-Motion Coupling in Three-Dimensional Trapped-Ion Crystals

TL;DR

This paper investigates how parametric amplification can enhance spin-motion coupling in 3D trapped-ion crystals, potentially speeding up quantum interactions crucial for sensing and simulation, with a focus on different gate implementations and their amplification fidelity.

Contribution

It derives a general Hamiltonian for parametric amplification in 3D crystals and analyzes the conditions under which various quantum gates can be faithfully amplified.

Findings

Only phase-insensitive Mølmer-Sørensen gates can be generally amplified.

Counter-rotating terms are less detrimental than previously thought.

Non-uniform amplification may be beneficial in certain scenarios.

Abstract

Three-dimensional (3D) crystals offer a route to scale up trapped ion systems for quantum sensing and quantum simulation applications. However, engineering coherent spin-motion couplings and effective spin-spin interactions in large crystals poses technical challenges associated with decoherence and prolonged timescales to generate appreciable entanglement. Here, we explore the possibility to speed up these interactions in 3D crystals via parametric amplification. We derive a general Hamiltonian for the parametric amplification of spin-motion coupling that is applicable to crystals of any dimension in both rf Paul traps and Penning traps. Unlike in lower dimensional crystals, we find that the ability to faithfully (uniformly) amplify the spin-spin interactions in 3D crystals depends on the physical implementation of the spin-motion coupling. We consider the light-shift (LS) gate, and the so-called phase-insensitive and phase-sensitive M{\o}lmer-S{\o}rensen (MS) gates, and find that only the latter gate can be faithfully amplified in general 3D crystals. We discuss a situation where non-uniform amplification can be advantageous. We also reconsider the impact of counter-rotating terms on parametric amplification and find that they are not as detrimental as previous studies suggest.