Studying entanglement dynamics in ion traps

CECILIA CORMICK; JUAN PABLO PAZ

Obergurgl

Conferencia; International Conference on Quantum Optics; 2010

The evolution of the entanglement between two oscillators coupled to a common thermal environment is nontrivial. The long time limit has three qualitatively different behaviors (phases) depending on parameters such as the temperature of the bath [J. P. Paz and A. J. Roncaglia, Phys. Rev. Lett. 100, 220401 (2008)]. The phases include cases with nonvanishing long-term entanglement, others with a final disentangled state, and situations displaying an infinite sequence of events of disappearance and revival of entanglement. We describean experiment to realize these different scenarios in an ion trap. The motional degrees of freedom of two ions are used to simulate the system while the coupling to an extra (central) ion, which is continuously laser cooled, is the gateway to a decohering reservoir. The scheme proposed allows for the observation and control of motional entanglement dynamics and is an example of a class of simulations of quantum open systems in the non-Markovianregime.