Trapped-ion internal and motional states ($|g,n⟩=|g⟩\otimes |n⟩$)

An internal qubit uses two distinguishable electronic or hyperfine structure quantum states, denoted $|g⟩,|e⟩$. The ion's centre-of-mass motion has a different Hilbert space. In one approximately harmonic direction, a number state $|n⟩$ has energy $E_n=\hslash \nu (n+1/2)$, where $\nu$ denotes a motional angular frequency, not ordinary frequency. The tensor product of quantum systems gives $|g,n⟩$. Cooling towards $n=0$ prepares motion; it does not automatically prepare the internal qubit. Nor does the ground state mean a stationary point particle: zero-point energy and position spread remain.

For several ions, Coulomb forces couple their displacements into collective normal modes. Each selected normal mode has its own quantum harmonic oscillator number states, while each ion retains internal qubit states. A pulse addressing one ion can change a shared mode. This supplies a route to correlations between distant internal quantum states; it also makes residual motional excitation and unwanted excitation of other normal modes relevant. A single-ion pulse calculation alone establishes no experimental multi-ion quantum gate performance.

For normalized oscillator states and $x=\sqrt{\hslash /(2m\omega )}(a+a^{†})$, define $\eta =k\sqrt{\hslash /(2m\omega )}$. Normal ordering the displacement operator gives the displayed matrix element. A sudden momentum kick therefore creates a Poisson distribution of oscillator occupations with mean ${\eta }^2$. Its mean added motional energy is ${\eta }^2\hslash \omega ={\hslash }^2{k}^2/(2m)$, although most events retain $n=0$ when $\eta \ll 1$.

A transition between oscillator energy eigenstates that adds one quantum changes kinetic and potential expectation energies by $\hslash \omega /2$ each. A sudden unobserved momentum kick instead initially adds its energy only to kinetic motion and leaves the position distribution unchanged. Coherent superpositions distinguish these descriptions. Averaging over motional outcomes gives a recoil-scale total energy; time averaging or dephasing gives equal kinetic and potential shares. Broad-line transition rates need not be exactly equal to bare overlap probabilities if finite spectral weights matter.

The Lamb-Dicke regime means the wave-induced phase change across the occupied motional wavepacket is small. For one normal mode, let $x_0=\sqrt{\hslash /(2m\nu )}$ be the ground state's position standard deviation, and write $x=x_0(a+a^{†})$ using creation and annihilation operators. Here $m$ is mass and $\hslash$ the Planck constant divided by $2\pi$. The effective wave vector component $k_{\mathrm{eff}}$ is the single beam's component for a direct transition, or the difference of two beam components for a Raman transition. With dimensionless $\eta =|k_{\mathrm{eff}}|x_0$, the useful condition is $\eta \sqrt{2n+1}\ll 1$ over the populated number states, rather than merely $\eta \ll 1$.

Absorb the sign of $k_{\mathrm{eff}}$ into the pulse phase. Expanding the coupling factor givesThe constant term preserves $n$; the annihilation operator gives $a|n⟩=\sqrt{n}|n-1⟩$; the creation operator gives $a^{†}|n⟩=\sqrt{n+1}|n+1⟩$. The different square roots explain why removing a motional quantum becomes impossible at $n=0$, while adding one remains possible. Smallness of $\eta$ controls this spatial expansion; resolving the resulting transitions is a separate frequency requirement.

A motional sideband is a transition that changes internal excitation and a motional quantum number together. Define the internal energy gap as $\hslash {\omega }_0>0$. A carrier drives $|g,n⟩\leftrightarrow |e,n⟩$; the first red sideband drives $|g,n⟩\leftrightarrow |e,n-1⟩$; the first blue sideband drives $|g,n⟩\leftrightarrow |e,n+1⟩$. Their resonant drive angular frequencies follow by subtracting these energy levels. For a Raman transition, the drive is a beam-difference frequency with a sign fixed by the selected internal transition.

Choose a real carrier Rabi angular frequency $\Omega$ defined so that resonant carrier excitation is ${\sin }^2(\Omega t/2)$. In the Lamb-Dicke regime, isolated first-sideband Hamiltonians in a rotating frame can be written, after choosing the pulse phase, asThese formulas use a rotating-wave approximation: neglected carrier and other-sideband terms oscillate rapidly compared with the retained coupling. The drive's effective width and sideband coupling must be small compared with $\nu$; sufficient suppression of off-resonant carrier excitation must also be checked. The red interaction is a Jaynes-Cummings model with a motional quantum replacing a cavity photon. The blue interaction creates internal excitation and a motional quantum together; the external laser supplies energy. The driven-system rotating-frame Hamiltonian alone is not the total laboratory energy.

A motional carrier transition changes an atom's internal state without changing its oscillator quantum number. Its matrix element from the motional ground state contains the factor $e^{-{\eta }^2/2}$. A first blue sideband is smaller in amplitude by $\eta$ and changes the motional energy by one trap quantum. Conditional energy changes must be distinguished from averages over all motional outcomes.

Consider an original ideal calculation with no heating, decoherence, detuning or spectator modes. In the ordered basis $(|g,n⟩,|e,n-1⟩)$ for $n\ge 1$, the red motional sideband has $H_r=\hslash \eta \Omega \sqrt{n}{\sigma }_x/2$. Here ${\sigma }_x$ is the Pauli matrix exchanging the two basis states. Since ${\sigma }_x^2=I$, its unitary time evolution isThus $U_n^{†}{U}_n=I$, and excitation from $|g,n⟩$ has probability $P_r(n,t)={\sin }^2(\theta \sqrt{n}/2)$. For $n=0$ it vanishes. The blue motional sideband similarly gives $P_b(n,t)={\sin }^2(\theta \sqrt{n+1}/2)$. A red Rabi pi pulse calibrated for $n=1$ has $\theta =\pi$; it is not a Rabi pi pulse for every occupied $n$.

Choose $\eta =0.08$, $\Omega /(2\pi )=100\mathrm{kHz}$ and $\nu /(2\pi )=2\mathrm{MHz}$. The $n=1$ red Rabi pi pulse lasts $t_{\pi }=\pi /(\eta \Omega )=62.5\mu \mathrm{s}$. Let motion have the Boltzmann distribution of a quantum harmonic oscillator, with chosen mean occupation $\bar{n}=0.25$:Here $\sum p_n=1$, $\sum n{p}_n=\bar{n}$ and $p_0=0.8$. Reindex the red sum using $n=m+1$ and $p_{m+1}=r{p}_m$: $P_r(t)=r{P}_b(t)$ for equal resonant pulse parameters, even outside the short-pulse limit. At times with $P_b>0$, the ratio $R=P_r/P_b$ therefore gives $\bar{n}=R/(1-R)$. A nonthermal distribution, unequal drive strengths, detuning or state-detection bias can invalidate that thermometer. Ground-state population cannot generally be deduced from the mean alone without specifying the distribution.

The chosen pulse gives $P_r\simeq 0.181393$ and $P_b\simeq 0.906967$. These are internal excitation probabilities, not quantum gate fidelities or cooling-cycle efficiencies. An independent matrix exponentiation of each two-state block agrees with the sine formula and preserves normalization. Summing $n=0,\dots ,79$ omits probability $r^{80}<1.21\times 10^{-56}$; because every sine squared lies between zero and one, this also bounds each omitted response. The thermal relation supplies a separate dimensional check:Here $k_B$ is the Boltzmann constant. Substitution recovers $\bar{n}=0.25$; the thermal root-mean-square expansion parameter is $\eta \sqrt{2\bar{n}+1}\simeq 0.098$. This checks the populated part of the Lamb-Dicke regime, while exponentially rare large $n$ still exceed any fixed small-parameter criterion. The pulse is a leading-order model; it does not bound corrections from the full coupling or experimental noise.