Entanglement in a synthetic quantum magnet made of hundreds of trapped ions
Justin Bohnet, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Boulder
Entanglement between individual quantum objects exponentially increases the complexity of quantum many-body systems, such that models with more than 40 quantum bits cannot be fully studied using conventional techniques on classical computers. To make progress at this frontier of physics, Feynman’s pioneering ideas of quantum computation and quantum simulation are now being pursued in a wide variety of well-controlled platforms. Trapped-ion quantum simulators are naturally suited for simulating quantum magnetism, with high-fidelity state preparation and readout, long trapping and coherence times, and strong, tunable spin-spin interactions. I will discuss how we engineer quantum magnetic interactions in 2-dimensional arrays of hundreds Be+ ions crystallized in a Penning trap. Here, I will explain how we can generate and observe entanglement using far-from-equilibrium quantum spin dynamics. Furthermore, I describe a technique we use to observe the spread of quantum coherence through the system by measuring out-of-time-order correlation functions.