Preliminary Studies On Dipole Phonon Quantum Interaction With Co-Trapped Calcium And Calcium Oxide Ions

As trapped-ion quantum technologies advance, quantum simulation platforms and quantum computers scale in the number of qubits available and their possible operations. As the laser control systems and the micromotion from the trapping potential become harder to manage, the possibility of implementing atomic/molecular hybrid trapped ion systems has been investigated. Such systems require state preparation, manipulation, and detection of molecular ions, which have more complex energy-level structures and selection rules.

This thesis reports a preliminary study on Dipole-Phonon Quantum Logic(DPQL), which is the interaction between trapped molecular ions and atomic ions, and the possibility of realizing indirect laserless control of the electronic state of the molecular ion.

The experimental candidate is co-trapped calcium and calcium oxide ions. They are laser-cooled to the motional ground state to study the mapping from the molecule’s electronic state to the shared motion, which could then be detected on the atomic ion. A Monte-Carlo simulation is performed to predict the experimental observation of phonon number change events. The controlling program is organized and reordered with a scheduler program to increase the experiment’s efficiency.

The previous experimental control is migrated and upgraded to a new architecture. The Monte-Carlo simulation suggests that the signal should be observed in the lab environment at a timescale of tens of minutes. This study lays the groundwork for further investigations into DPQL and its potential applications.