Phononic bright and dark states: Investigating multi-mode light-matter interactions with a single trapped ion
Abstract
Interference underpins some of the most practical and impactful properties of both the classical and quantum worlds. In this work we experimentally investigate a new formalism to describe interference effects, based on collective states which have enhanced or suppressed coupling to a two-level system. We employ a single trapped ion, whose electronic state is coupled to two of the ion's motional modes in order to simulate a multi-mode light-matter interaction. We observe the emergence of phononic bright and dark states for both a single phonon and a superposition of coherent states and demonstrate that a view of interference which is based solely on their decomposition in the collective basis is able to intuitively describe their coupling to a single atom. This work also marks the first time that multi-mode bright and dark states have been formed with the bounded motion of a single trapped ion and we highlight the potential of the methods discussed here for use in quantum information processing.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2403.07154,
title = {Phononic bright and dark states: Investigating multi-mode light-matter interactions with a single trapped ion},
author = {Harry Parke and Robin Thomm and Alan C. Santos and André Cidrim and Gerard Higgins and Marion Mallweger and Natalia Kuk and Shalina Salim and Romain Bachelard and Celso J. Villas-Boas and Markus Hennrich},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2403.07154},
year = {2024}
}
Comments
7 + 5 pages, 6 + 4 figures