YQI Colloquium - Daniel Slichter - NIST Boulder

Event time: 
Friday, November 5, 2021 - 12:00pm to 1:00pm
Audience: 
YQI Researchers
Location: 
Zoom See map
Event description: 
Speeding up harmonic oscillator dynamics with parametric modulation
 
Harmonic oscillators in the quantum regime are a crucial ingredient in many quantum platforms, and can be used to store quantum information, to couple other quantum systems, or to sense weak signals.  These tasks can sometimes be aided by using non-classical harmonic oscillator states, such as cat states or squeezed states.  Such non-classical states can be generated in various ways; one method for creating squeezed states is to perform parametric modulation of the harmonic oscillator frequency.  In my talk, I will describe some recent experiments involving squeezing of the motional modes of trapped atomic ions – which can be treated as quantum harmonic oscillators – by parametric modulation of the ions’ confining potential.  This squeezing can be used to amplify the effects of externally applied resonant electric fields on the harmonic oscillator state, realizing quantum-enhanced sensing.  Squeezing of the ion motion can also be used to speed up the dynamics of Hamiltonians where the ion motion is coupled to the internal degrees of freedom of one or more ions.  In particular, we demonstrate a speedup for implementing motion-mediated two-qubit entangling gates. 
 
Hosted by Steve Girvin
 
Join the Zoom meeting here - Alternatively, the talk will be screened on big screens in YQI Seminar Room