Chiral spin currents in a trapped-ion quantum simulator using Floquet engineering

Abstract

The most typical ingredient of topologically protected quantum states are magnetic fluxes. In a system of spins, complex-valued interaction parameters give rise to a flux, if their phases do not add up to zero along a closed loop. Here we apply periodic driving, a powerful tool for quantum engineering, to a trapped-ion quantum simulator in order to generate such spin-spin interactions. We consider a simple driving scheme, consisting of a repeated series of locally quenched fields, and demonstrate the feasibility of this approach by studying the dynamics of a small system. An emblematic hallmark of the flux, accessible in experiments, is the appearance of chiral spin currents. Strikingly, we find that in parameter regimes where, in the absence of fluxes, phonon excitations dramatically reduce the fidelity of the spin model simulation, the spin dynamics remains widely unaffected by the phonons when fluxes are present.

5 pages, 4 figures

References in corpus (35)

• Non-Abelian Anyons and Topological Quantum Computation
• Experimental realisation of the topological Haldane model
• Floquet Topological Insulator in Semiconductor Quantum Wells
• Imaging topological edge states in silicon photonics
• Chiral Quantum Optics
• Realization of the Hofstadter Hamiltonian with ultracold atoms in optical lattices
• Topological characterization of periodically-driven quantum systems
• Realizing the Harper Hamiltonian with Laser-Assisted Tunneling in Optical Lattices
• Observation of a Many-Body Dynamical Phase Transition with a 53-Qubit Quantum Simulator
• Engineered 2D Ising interactions on a trapped-ion quantum simulator with hundreds of spins
• Many-body localization in a quantum simulator with programmable random disorder
• Effective quantum spin systems with ion traps
• Observation of entanglement propagation in a quantum many-body system
• Non-local propagation of correlations in long-range interacting quantum systems
• Majorana Fermions in Equilibrium and Driven Cold Atom Quantum Wires
• Observation of chiral edge states with neutral fermions in synthetic Hall ribbons
• Quantum simulation of frustrated magnetism in triangular optical lattices
• Dynamical control of matter-wave tunneling in periodic potentials
• Visualizing edge states with an atomic Bose gas in the quantum Hall regime
• Tunable gauge potential for neutral and spinless particles in driven lattices
• Quantum spin dynamics and entanglement generation with hundreds of trapped ions
• Direct observation of dynamical quantum phase transitions in an interacting many-body system
• Superfluid-insulator transition in a periodically driven optical lattice
• Chiral groundstate currents of interacting photons in a synthetic magnetic field
• Ion-trap quantum logic using long-wavelength radiation
• Entanglement and Tunable Spin-Spin Couplings Between Trapped Ions Using Multiple Transverse Modes
• Synthetic Landau levels for photons
• Floquet engineering of correlated tunneling in the Bose-Hubbard model with ultracold atoms
• Frustrated quantum antiferromagnetism with ultracold bosons in a triangular lattice
• Synthetic Gauge Fields for Vibrational Excitations of Trapped ions
• Chains with loops - synthetic magnetic fluxes and topological order in one-dimensional spin systems
• Direct measurement of topological numbers with spins in diamond
• Boson-mediated quantum spin simulators in transverse fields: XY model and spin-boson entanglement
• Intrinsic phonon effects on analog quantum simulators with ultracold trapped ions
• Dual trapped-ion quantum simulators: an alternative route towards exotic quantum magnets

Cited by in corpus (6)

• Synthetic dimensions for topological and quantum phases: Perspective
• Quantum simulations with complex geometries and synthetic gauge fields in a trapped ion chain
• Effective triangular ladders with staggered flux from spin-orbit coupling in 1D optical lattices
• Effective Hamiltonian with tunable mixed pairing in driven optical lattices
• Semiclassical approach to finite temperature quantum annealing with trapped ions
• Estimating heating times in periodically driven quantum many-body systems via avoided crossing spectroscopy