QUROPE Quantum Information Processing and Communication in Europe

Various quantum phenomena like high-Tc superconductivity or quark confinement are still awaiting universally accepted explanations, because of the computational complexity of solving simplified theoretical models designed to capture their relevant physics. Feynman suggested solving such models by "quantum simulation" with a device designed to obey the same quantum many-body dynamics. So far, the community has mostly focused on developing the \emph{controllability} of quantum simulators.

We present a detailed theoretical and conceptual study of a planned experiment to excite Rydberg states of ions trapped in a Paul trap. The ultimate goal is to exploit the strong state-dependent interactions between Rydberg ions to implement quantum information processing protocols and simulate the dynamics of strongly interacting spin systems. We highlight the promise of this approach when combining the high degree of control and readout of quantum states in trapped ion crystals with the novel and fast gate schemes based on interacting giant Rydberg atomic dipole moments.

We propose to couple a trapped single electron to superconducting structures located at a variable distance from the electron. The electron is captured in a cryogenic Penning trap using electric fields and a static magnetic field in the tesla range. Measurements on the electron will allow investigating the properties of the superconductor such as vortex structure, damping and decoherence.

We present a detailed theoretical and experimental study on the optical control of a trapped-ion qubit subject to thermally induced fluctuations of the Rabi frequency. The coupling fluctuations are caused by thermal excitation on three harmonic oscillator modes. We develop an effective Maxwell-Boltzmann theory which leads to a replacement of several quantized oscillator modes by an effective continuous probability distribution function for the Rabi frequency. The model is experimentally verified for driving the quadrupole transition with resonant square pulses.

We report transport operations with linear crystals of 40Ca+ ions performed by applying complex electric time-dependent potentials. For their control we use the information obtained from the ions’ fluorescence. We demonstrate that by means of this feedback technique, we can transport a predefined number of ions and also split and unify ion crystals.

The present paper describes the experimental implementation of a measuring technique employing a slowly moving, near resonant, optical standing wave in the context of trapped ions. It is used to measure several figures of merit that are important for quantum computation in ion traps and which are otherwise not easily obtainable. Our technique is shown to offer high precision, and also in many cases using a much simpler setup than what is normally used.

We present efficient methods to implement the quantum computing Grover search algorithm using the Rydberg blockade interaction. We show that simple π-pulse excitation sequences between ground and Rydberg excited states readily produce the key conditional phase shift and inversion-about-the-mean unitary operations for the Grover search. Multi-qubit implementation schemes suitable for different properties of the atomic interactions are identified and the error scaling of the protocols with system size is found to be promising for experimental investigation.

We consider three level atoms driven by two resonant light fields in a ladder scheme where the upper level is a highly excited Rydberg state. We show that the dipole--dipole interactions between Rydberg excited atoms prevents the formation of single particle dark states and leads to strongly correlated photon emission from atoms separated by distances large compared to the emission wavelength. For two atoms, correlated photon pairs are emitted with an angular distribution given by a coherent sum of the independent dipolar fields.

In this article we discuss and compare different ways to engineer an interface between ultracold atoms and micro- and nanomechanical oscillators. We start by analyzing a direct mechanical coupling of a single atom or ion to a mechanical oscillator and show that the very different masses of the two systems place a limit on the achievable coupling constant in this scheme.

On the 4th of February 2011 the European Commission has sent us the official approval to our request to add Basel Universität (UNIBAS) among the AQUTE partners, following the move of Professor Philipp Treutlein from München (LMU, AQUTE partner P11) to Basel.