Experimental Realization of Thermal Reservoirs with Tunable Temperature in a Trapped-Ion Spin-Boson Simulator

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates an experimental method to create tunable thermal reservoirs in a trapped-ion system, enabling precise quantum simulations of open-system dynamics at controlled finite temperatures.

Contribution

It introduces a novel scheme for engineering thermal baths with adjustable temperatures and dissipation rates in a trapped-ion platform, facilitating advanced quantum simulations.

Findings

Successfully realized out-of-equilibrium dynamics at different temperatures.

Observed broadening of transfer rate spectrum at higher temperatures.

Detected thermally activated interference pathways in exciton transfer.

Abstract

We propose and demonstrate an experimental scheme to engineer thermal baths with independently tunable temperatures and dissipation rates for the motional modes of a trapped-ion system. This approach enables robust thermal-state preparation and quantum simulations of open-system dynamics in bosonic and spin-boson models at well-controlled finite temperatures. We benchmark our protocol by experimentally realizing out-of-equilibrium dynamics of a charge-transfer model at different temperatures. We observe that, when the process occurs at a higher temperature, the transfer rate spectrum broadens, with reduced rates at small donor-acceptor energy gaps and enhanced rates at large gaps. We then employ our scheme to study local-temperature effects in a two-mode vibrationally assisted exciton transfer system, where we observe thermally activated interference pathways for excitation transfer.