Temperature driven structural phase transition for trapped ions and its experimental detection

Abstract

A Wigner crystal formed with trapped ion can undergo structural phase transition, which is determined only by the mechanical conditions on a classical level. Instead of this classical result, we show that through consideration of quantum and thermal fluctuation, a structural phase transition can be solely driven by change of the system's temperature. We determine a finite-temperature phase diagram for trapped ions using the renormalization group method and the path integral formalism, and propose an experimental scheme to observe the predicted temperature-driven structural phase transition, which is well within the reach of the current ion trap technology.

4 pages, 5 figures

References in corpus (11)

• Quantum computing with trapped ions
• Effective quantum spin systems with ion traps
• Generic properties of a quasi-one dimensional classical Wigner crystal
• Structural phase transitions in low-dimensional ion crystals
• Large Scale Quantum Computation in an Anharmonic Linear Ion Trap
• Double wells, scalar fields and quantum phase transitions in ions traps
• Observation of Three-dimensional Long-range Order in Smaller Ion Coulomb Crystals in an rf Trap
• Observation of power-law scaling for phase transitions in linear trapped ion crystals
• Nonlinear coupling of continuous variables at the single quantum level
• Eigenmodes and thermodynamics of a Coulomb chain in a harmonic potential
• Dynamics of an ion chain in a harmonic potential

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• Zigzag Phase Transition in Quantum Wires
• Structure, dynamics and bifurcations of discrete solitons in trapped ion crystals
• Quantum Magnetism of Spin-Ladder Compounds with Trapped-Ion Crystals
• Spin-Peierls Quantum Phase Transitions in Coulomb Crystals
• Structural transitions of ion strings in quantum potentials
• Dynamics of superconducting vortices driven by oscillatory forces in the plastic flow regime
• Finite temperature spectrum at the symmetry-breaking linear-zigzag transition
• Metastability and hysteretic vortex pinning near the order-disorder transition in NbSe${}_2$: An interplay between plastic and elastic energy barriers?
• Ion-crystal demonstration of structural phase transition induced solely by temperature
• Quantum nanofriction in trapped ion chains with a topological defect
• Intrinsic anharmonic effects on the phonon frequencies and effective spin-spin interactions in a quantum simulator made from trapped ions in a linear Paul trap
• Operator-based derivation of phonon modes and characterization of correlations for trapped ions at zero and finite temperature
• Thermal masses and trapped-ion quantum spin models: a self-consistent approach to Yukawa-type interactions in the $\lambda {\varphi }^4$ model
• Finite temperature crossover from a crystalline to a cluster phase for a confined finite chain of ions