Employing Trapped Cold Ions to Verify the Quantum Jarzynski Equality

Author/Creator ORCID

Date

2008-08-14

Department

Program

Citation of Original Publication

Gerhard Huber et al., Employing Trapped Cold Ions to Verify the Quantum Jarzynski Equality, Phys. Rev. Lett. 101 07 (2008), DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.101.070403

Rights

This item is likely protected under Title 17 of the U.S. Copyright Law. Unless on a Creative Commons license, for uses protected by Copyright Law, contact the copyright holder or the author.
© 2008 The American Physical Society

Subjects

Abstract

We propose a scheme to investigate the nonequilibrium work distribution of a quantum particle under well controlled transformations of the external potential, exploiting the versatility of a single ion in a segmented linear Paul trap. We describe in detail how the motional quantum state of a single ion can be prepared, manipulated, and finally readout to fully determine the free energy difference in both harmonic and anharmonic potentials. Uniquely to our system, we show how an ion may be immersed in an engineered laser-field reservoir. Trapped ions therefore represent an ideal tool for investigating the Jarzynski equality in open and closed quantum systems.